Outside of this being her first trip in an airplane, the rest of the flight was uneventful.

I've tumbled through the air long enough to make me contented on this roof.

And stop this necking before the kids come in.

"Second," Katie cut in, "His father's family has been in this country longer than yours."

Very little would change in this seventy-year stretch of life.

Just about time I think the two of you are making progress, something like this comes up.

If their meeting today was any indication, this visit was going to be interesting - if not uncomfortable.

This does not bother you?

There is no play in them, for this comes after work.

"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least disconcerted by this reception.

This was the final step.

I have heard of this wonderful magic.

"Now, Princess," exclaimed the Wizard, "those of your advisors who wished to throw us into the Garden of Clinging Vines must step within this circle of light.

This was a decision she had already made once - but not really.

"I've got to go wash my hands and shuck this coat," she said.

This wasn't the Alex she knew.

This is a fine meal, do you think?

But this wasn't about intimacy - was it?

You've paid a dear price for this thing.

Despite his seniority in rank Bagration, in this contest of magnanimity, took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him less than ever.

I'm old and weak and this is what you wanted.

I want this baby as much as you do, Alex.

I should get rid of this and buy something a little more feminine.

But this wasn't just any trip.

It always comes down to this, doesn't it?

I mean, that they didn't feel this way all the time.

He didn't want to go, so maybe this was his expression of resistance.

This new baby... it will not be too much?

Someone else carries this baby for you.

I agreed to this and I want the baby as much as you do.

I know, but... we're guests in this house, and...

Morino said this horse was gentle.

It's none of my business how you run this outfit.

Once again he lowered his head, but this time his lips lingered on hers, searching for a response.

In the first place, he didn't consider this home.

But if you could trust him this way and there was no electricity, would it still be love?

And he loves you this much?

The worst thing was their terror of reaching the bottom of this great crack in the earth, and the natural fear that sudden death was about to overtake them at any moment.

With this thought in mind the girl took heart and leaned her head over the side of the buggy to see where the strange light was coming from.

This is a nice scrape you've got me into, isn't it?

All this was so terrible and unreal that he could not understand it at all, and so had good reason to be afraid.

At this they both put their heads over the side of the buggy and looked down.

It's this queer light that gives her that color.

They began to wonder if there were no people to inhabit this magnificent city of the inner world.

"None of us has had breakfast," said the boy; "and in a time of danger like this it's foolish to talk about eating."

I can see plenty of nice gardens and fields down below us, at the edge of this city.

For a moment the boy did not know what he meant by this question.

Then, remembering the stones that had fallen with them and passed them long before they had reached this place, he answered:

The man with the star stood for a time quietly thinking over this speech.

In this quake a big crack opened and we fell through--horse and buggy, and all--and the stones got loose and came down with us.

This second one was a Rain of People-and-Horse-and-Buggy.

With this he caught up two of the piglets and pushed them together, so that the two were one.

This the Wizard placed underneath his hat and made a mystic sign above it.

By the time he had attached a handle to this sword he was having much trouble to breathe, as the charm of the Sorcerer was beginning to take effect.

We are all vegetable, in this country.

"A nice country this is," he grumbled, "where a respectable horse has to eat pink grass!"

By this time the party had reached a freshly plowed field, and the Prince said to Dorothy:

All of our Princes and Rulers have grown upon this one bush from time immemorial.

I think I shall keep this Wizard until a new Sorcerer is ready to pick, for he seems quite skillful and may be of use to us.

This was a very interesting experience to them.

"Is this a fairy country?" asked the boy.

There is no reason, that I can see, why they may not exist in the waters of this strange country.

The little pigs had stood huddled in a group, watching this scene with frightened eyes.

They agreed to this plan, and when they reached the great square Jim drew the buggy into the big door of the domed hall.

With this he began walking in the air toward the high openings, and Dorothy and Zeb followed him.

"Why, there seems to be no night at all in this country," Zeb replied.

The advisors of the Princess did not like this test; but she commanded them to step into the flame and one by one they did so, and were scorched so badly that the air was soon filled with an odor like that of baked potatoes.

They knew the kitten, by this time, so they scampered over to where she lay beside Jim and commenced to frisk and play with her.

Here--stop this foolishness!

"What does all this mean, anyhow?" asked the horse, jumping to escape a thorn.

"This is dreadful!" groaned Jim.

But we can't live long in this cavern, that's certain.

"How big is this hole?" asked Dorothy.

The others agreed readily to this sensible suggestion, and at once the boy began to harness Jim to the buggy.

"We must be nearly as high as the six colored suns, by this time," said Dorothy.

I didn't know this mountain was so tall.

Jim hastened his lagging steps at this assurance of a quick relief from the dark passage.

Several minutes were consumed in silent admiration before they noticed two very singular and unusual facts about this valley.

The second and even more singular fact was the absence of any inhabitant of this splendid place.

One of the chairs pushed back from the table, and this was so astonishing and mysterious that Dorothy was almost tempted to run away in fright.

"Well, well!" said the Wizard; "are there really people in this room?"

"They walled us up in a mountain," continued the Wizard; "but we found there was a tunnel through to this side, so we came here.

We have seen no people since we arrived, so we came to this house to enquire our way.

Two childish voices laughed merrily at this action, and Dorothy was sure they were in no danger among such light-hearted folks, even if those folks couldn't be seen.

"Yes, dear," her mistress replied; "there are people living in this house, although we cannot see them.

The wanders were rather discouraged by this gloomy report, but Dorothy said with a sigh:

He had nearly finished this last task when a low growling was suddenly heard and the horse began to jump around and kick viciously with his heels.

"I think we'd better stick to the river, after this," said Dorothy.

Once a little fish swam too near the surface, and the kitten grabbed it in her mouth and ate it up as quick as a wink; but Dorothy cautioned her to be careful what she ate in this valley of enchantments, and no more fishes were careless enough to swim within reach.

But this enabled them to proceed steadily until they came to a landing where there was a rift in the side of the mountain that let in both light and air.

Looking through this opening they could see the Valley of Voe lying far below them, the cottages seeming like toy houses from that distance.

Once I lived on top the earth, but for many years I have had my factory in this spot--half way up Pyramid Mountain.

"Have you a factory in this place?" asked the Wizard, who had been examining the strange personage carefully.

"This," said the man, taking up a box and handling it gently, "contains twelve dozen rustles--enough to last any lady a year.

"In this," he continued, "are many assorted flutters.

"I do not want money," returned the braided man, "for I could not spend it in this deserted place if I had it.

It did her good to see how the braided man's eyes sparkled when he received this treasure.

No one replied to this, because they found they needed all their breath for the climb.

I've taken a look at this place, and it's no fit country for real creatures to go to.

With this speech he bent forward and dragged the buggy up the remaining steps.

But we dropped into this adventure rather unexpectedly.

Before this crowned Gargoyle had recovered himself Zeb had wound a strap several times around its body, confining its wings and arms so that it could not move.

This daunted the enemy for a time, but the defenders were soon out of breath.

The houses of this city had many corners, being square and six-sided and eight-sided.

In this country, as in all others they had visited underneath the earth's surface, there was no night, a constant and strong light coming from some unknown source.

"This seems to be their time of rest," observed the Wizard.

No; she just dug her claws into the wood and climbed down the sides of this house to the ground.

"Well, this was a figure of a cat," said Jim, "and she WENT down, anyhow, whether she climbed or crept."

"That," said Zeb, "explains why this house is used by them for a prison.

But come, my children; let us explore the mountain and discover which way we must go in order to escape from this cavern, which is getting to be almost as hot as a bake-oven.

To their disappointment there was within this mountain no regular flight of steps by means of which they could mount to the earth's surface.

"What sort of place is this?" asked the boy, trying to see more clearly through the gloom.

They are in little pockets all around the edge of this cavern.

Mother usually knows what she is about, but she made a mistake this time; for you are sure to escape us unless you come too near, and you probably won't do that.

"It occurs to me," said the Wizard, "that we ought to get out of this place before the mother dragon comes back."

This rock was separate from the rest of the mountain and was in motion, turning slowly around and around as if upon a pivot.

This appeared so unexpectedly that they were unprepared to take advantage of it at first, and allowed the rocky wall to swing around again before they had decided to pass over.

"It is possible," agreed the Wizard, "if this proves to be the path she usually takes.

"Very. Unless this passage also leads to the top of the earth," said Zeb.

"I was sure it would come to this, in the end," remarked the old cab-horse.

But don't you lose heart, Jim, for I'm sure this isn't the end of our story, by any means.

"Do you mean that Princess Ozma will see this cave in her enchanted picture, and see all of us here, and what we are doing?" demanded Zeb.

But this sawhorse can trot as fast as you can, Jim; and he's very wise, too.

He had seen considerable of life in the cities in his younger days, and knew that this regal palace was no place for him.

This mollified Jim a little, and after some thought the green maiden decided to give the cab-horse a room in the palace, such a big building having many rooms that were seldom in use.

Please tell me, Mr. Wizard, whether you called yourself Oz after this great country, or whether you believe my country is called Oz after you.

One day my balloon ran away with me and brought me across the deserts to this beautiful country.

Over this Land I ruled in peace for many years, until I grew old and longed to see my native city once again.

Many years before you came here this Land was united under one Ruler, as it is now, and the Ruler's name was always 'Oz,' which means in our language 'Great and Good'; or, if the Ruler happened to be a woman, her name was always 'Ozma.'

"We owe a great deal to the Wonderful Wizard," continued the Princess, "for it was you who built this splendid Emerald City."

Is there nothing that is decent to eat in this palace?

"You are at least six feet high, and that is higher than any other animal in this country," said the Steward.

This praise won Jim completely.

This, noble Horse, is my friend the Cowardly Lion, who is the valiant King of the Forest, but at the same time a faithful vassal of Princess Ozma.

And this is the Hungry Tiger, the terror of the jungle, who longs to devour fat babies but is prevented by his conscience from doing so.

These royal beasts are both warm friends of little Dorothy and have come to the Emerald City this morning to welcome her to our fairyland.

So let us cease this talk of skull crushing and converse upon more pleasant subjects.

The chariot was drawn on this occasion by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger, who were decorated with immense pink and blue bows.

There followed another band after this, which was called the Royal Court Band, because the members all lived in the palace.

The boys wore long hair and striped sweaters and yelled their college yell every other step they took, to the great satisfaction of the populace, which was glad to have this evidence that their lungs were in good condition.

This act he repeated until all of the nine tiny piglets were visible, and they were so glad to get out of his pocket that they ran around in a very lively manner.

This made Zeb laugh, in turn, and the boy felt comforted to find that Ozma laughed as merrily at her weeping subject as she had at him.

Hearing this apology the Tiger and the Lion stopped lashing their tails and retreated with dignified steps to the side of the Princess.

There was more applause at this, and then Ozma had the jewelled saddle replaced upon the Sawhorse and herself rode the victor back to the city at the head of the grand procession.

Several days of festivity and merry-making followed, for such old friends did not often meet and there was much to be told and talked over between them, and many amusements to be enjoyed in this delightful country.

Hearing this, Dorothy and the Wizard exchanged startled glances, for they remembered how often Eureka had longed to eat a piglet.

Dorothy was nearly weeping, by this time, while Ozma was angry and indignant.

"Why do you want me?" asked Eureka, disturbed by this threat.

Carry this cat away to prison, and keep her in safe confinement until she is tried by law for the crime of murder.

"Is this a trial of thoughts, or of kittens?" demanded the Woggle-Bug.

Respected Jury and dearly beloved Ozma, I pray you not to judge this feline prisoner unfeelingly.

If he can produce but seven, then this is not the piglet that was lost, but another one.

This cannot be the one the Wizard gave me.

At this everyone in the Throne Room suddenly became quiet, and the kitten continued, in a calm, mocking tone of voice:

"This is a fine country, and I like all the people that live in it," he told Dorothy.

"Greeting her uncle and aunt in Kansas, by this time," returned Ozma, with a smile.

I think this is the loveliest country in the world; but not being fairies Jim and I feel we ought to be where we belong--and that's at the ranch.

This primer was his only book, and he loved it.

And now, my friends, please to excuse My lisping and my stammers; I, for this once, have done my best, And so--I'll make my manners.

But this was not true.

This dog helped him watch the sheep.

How had he managed to drive all the frightened little animals into this place of safety?

But this I know, I love to play In the meadow, among the hay-- Up the water, and o'er the lea, That's the way for Billy and me.

It is this: When you oil your beard, don't oil it too much, lest it soil your clothing.

This was an odd way of proving something, for, as every one can readily see, it proved nothing.

Describe in verse this glad and glorious feast.

For this reason they had bought some powder and stored it at Concord,[Footnote: Concord (_pro_. kong'krd).] nearly twenty miles away.

When the king's soldiers heard about this powder, they made up their minds to go out and get it for themselves.

They are getting ready to start this very night.

This, in history, is called the Battle of Lexington.

He was very proud to think of this, and he wished that he might grow up to be like them.

"Shall we take a walk this morning?" asked his mother.

"This is just the place for that wolf," he thought.

We must put an end to this killing of lambs.

All the other men agreed to this, and they parted.

This happened when Israel Putnam was a young man.

I met him as he rode into town, and he said that he intended to stop at this hotel.

This time he brought a partridge.

"Who has done this?" he cried.

This happened six hundred years ago, in the city of Florence in Italy.

This made him very proud of his skill.

Some time after this, Zeuxis painted another wonderful picture.

When he hung this painting outside of his door, some birds flew down and tried to carry the cherries away.

"Ah! this picture is a failure," he said.

"I have heard that you are the wisest man in the world," she said, "and surely this simple thing ought not to puzzle you."

This boy loved pictures.

He was glad to do this; for he loved the baby.

He turned the picture this way and that, and looked at it from every side.

This child has a wonderful gift.

Everybody loved her, and this was the first time she had whispered that day.

All this happened many years ago in New Britain, Connecticut.

Now I have a mind to give this book to one of you

"But I should like to know the story which this book tells," said Alfred.

"How is this, my dear boy?" asked the king.

The king also wondered why this man, who was his favorite, should be so slighted.

He saw that Cyrus had a will of his own, and this pleased him very much.

This you forgot to do.

When the caliph heard of this he sent for Al Farra and asked him, "Who is the most honored of men?"

This was one of their first lessons at home and at school.

The robber chief was struck by this answer.

"What!" said he, "do you eat gold in this country?"

"Well, it is this way," answered the man: "I bought a piece of ground from this neighbor of mine, and paid him a fair price for it.

This treasure does not belong to me, for I bought only the ground; but when I offered it to my neighbor he refused it.

Well, then, this is my judgment.

The Spartans said to one another, Let us throw this fellow into the rocky chasm.

Some days after this the Spartans heard strange news: "Aristomenes is again at the head of the Greek army."

When the people heard about this speech of the rich man, Coriolanus, they were very angry.

Do this, or I will burn Rome and destroy all its people.

The Romans answered, We must have time to think of this matter.

There seemed to be no way to escape the anger of this furious man.

They say that Arion, being a good swimmer, kept himself afloat until this ship happened to pass by and rescued him from the waves.

And many other stories are told of this man's great love and pity for the timid creatures which lived in the fields and woods.

To do this, he had to take them to a large city where there was a slave market.

This answer pleased the rich man so well that he bought Aesop at once, and took him to his home on the island of Samos.

Many other stories are told of this wonderful slave.

"Now which of you will hang this bell on the Cat's neck?" said the old gray Mouse.

"This is the last great day!" cried others; and they knelt down and waited.

"This may be the last great day," he said.

For this reason many people were glad when he ran away from home and went to sea.

"I would rather live alone on a desert island than be a sailor on this ship," he said.

"What is the name of this island?" asked Selkirk.

"If I ever have the good fortune to escape from this island," he said, "I will be kind and obliging to every one.

This is the story which Mr. Defoe wrote.

It is true that I have been asleep, but I know nothing about this money.

He is the rightful lord of this country.

Then some one outside called loudly, "Have you seen King Robert the Bruce pass this way?"

As Tamerlane looked, he saw that there was a hole in the tree only a little way above, and that this was the home of the ant.

And this he did.

Of what other story does this remind you?

"This is slow work, Robert," said the older of the boys as they were poling up the river to a new fishing place.

He took something like an oarlock from his pocket and fastened it to the stern of the boat; then with a paddle which worked in this oarlock one of the boys could guide the boat while the other turned the paddle wheels.

This man was a gardener.

"It was this way," said the gardener: "I looked at the gold pieces, and then thought of my own great necessities.

But, as I came to your palace this morning, I kept saying to myself, 'When our lord Al Mansour learns just how it was that I borrowed the gold, I have no doubt that in his kindness of heart he will forgive me the debt.'

Saying this, he ordered that ten gold pieces be given to the merchant in place of those that were lacking.

It was for this reason that I left my fellows in the abbey kitchen and came here to be alone.

"Surely," said the abbess, "this is a poem, most sweet, most true, most beautiful.

And this he did.

So this prince grew up to be a young man, tall and fair and graceful.

Is this the condition to which I must come?

"Why is that man lying there at this time of day?" asked the prince.

"And is this the great, beautiful, happy world that I have been told about?" cried the prince.

I will spend all my life, and give all that I have, to lessen the distress and sorrow with which this world seems filled.

This the prince did.

And to this day, millions of people remember and honor the name of Gautama, as that of the great lover of men.

I looked and saw this little fellow struggling in the water.

The charcoal man and his wife listened to this little dispute, and said nothing.

Before Mrs. Jacquot could open it, some one called out, "Is this the house of Jacquot, the charcoal man?"

This charcoal man, whom I know very well, ran past me with a child in his arms.

But really, I fell into the pool at the fountain, and this kind man brought me here to get me dry.

They say he is hunting in the woods, and perhaps will ride out this way.

"My good men," he said, "how many fish do you expect to draw in this time?"

"This is a very important question," he said.

And this is what the oracle said:--

The governor was much pleased with this answer.

One of his mottoes was this: "Whatever you do, do it well."

"Educate the children," he said; and for that reason his name is remembered to this day.

And this the messengers did.

The famous men of whom I have told you in this story are commonly called the Seven Wise Men of Greece.

In this book, I maintain the future will be without ignorance, disease, hunger, poverty, and war, and I support those assertions with history, data, and reason.

This book is about that future and what it is going to look like—how it will be a place glorious and spectacular beyond our wildest hopes.

But the five phenomena I chose to tackle in this book are among the great blights on humanity that I believe the Internet and technology will help solve.

I am also a historian with a full understanding of how poverty, disease, ignorance, famine, and war have dominated life on this planet.

And because of this, we would therefore lose the inevitable relationships that naturally formed?

That this democratization of information and opinion would lead to vigorous debate and encourage a young monk to question the church?

This book is unusual for two reasons.

I make the predictions in this book not to be sensational or controversial.

This viewpoint seems reasonable because it is largely consistent with our everyday experience of life.

This approach is even more flawed than the first.

You would have thought this was crazy.

This is because history repeats itself—at least, as the great historian Will Durant says, "in outline form."

When we look at this record of the choices of people, we see a wide range of behaviors.

This will be extremely useful, because the game, as they say, has just changed completely.

This is not a shortcoming of our imaginations but rather a simple reality.

Even most futurists have fallen into this trap.

This tendency to only be able to see new technology as an extension of the old is exactly the phenomena we have seen with the Internet.

So when we say, "The Internet is an electronic library," this is true.

And when we say, "The Internet is an electronic store," this is true.

This is not merely a linguistic distinction.

Linda thinks about this and decides she wants to keep it ad-free for now.

This makes sense, so she spends her last $2000 in savings to buy ads.

Think about it this way: All the technology accumulated from the dawn of time to today has given us a certain amount of processing power.

This is going to have profound effects.

At this point, if you follow my reasoning, we have established at least the possibility of a bright future.

From this period came some of humanity's greatest masterpieces, including St. Peter's Basilica, Da Vinci's Last Supper, Michelangelo's Pieta, and hundreds of other instantly recognizable artistic treasures.

Only after the public grew weary of this did printers go off in search of completely new books, called novels to mark their newness.

It was, however—and this is sure to earn me the wrath of many humanities professors—a time of surprisingly little originality.

As I write this, something like fifty million blogs and billions of blog posts are online.

This begs the question, "Is any of it any good, really?"

This is not to the sixteenth-century Europeans' discredit or even to our credit.

A very, very few people, however, were freed from this sustenance lifestyle, either by their fortuitous birth or outstanding ability.

Imagine a world where everyone on the planet has access to this expanded canvas of human expression that technology has created.

What set this in motion?

If my reasoning stopped there, you would probably start fishing around for the receipt for this book and read up on your bookseller's return policy.

The Internet is not unique in solving for this access to information.

To understand this problem, consider our relationship with knowledge over the centuries.

This led to the creation of large libraries all around the world—and this was a problem.

This led to the creation of large libraries all around the world—and this was a problem.

She said, "At this very moment King Croesus is making turtle and goat soup."

He was, in fact, making this soup, his favorite dish.

And Croesus was so amazed that he endowed the Oracle at Delphi with all kinds of gifts and planned to run all-important questions by this oracle.

This accounted for the odd answers.

I tell this story to make a comparison between modern times and the past.

Search engines such as Google exist to solve this problem.

Search engines have done a fabulous job tackling this problem, even given the vast, vast, amounts of information added to the Internet every day.

However, even if this problem were solved perfectly, it doesn't really end ignorance.

The reason for this is what I call "The You Don't Know What to Ask Problem."

Let me illustrate this one from my own life.

And wisdom probably concludes, "I should not apply for this credit card."

So let's raise the bar to this lofty level.

Now, let's see how this might come about.

Pushing this to its logical extreme: What if everything you did was digitally remembered?

To avoid privacy issues at this point, let's stipulate that everything is recorded only for your future reference.

This would be very useful: No more struggling to remember what you promised the client you would deliver by Friday; you just look up the transcript.

Isn't this the direction technology inevitably is heading?

That said, if I had to pick one function I think the Internet will turn out to "be," it is this: The Internet will become a repository and a set of applications for storing the sum total of all life experiences of all people on earth.

And they will see how this information will be used to better the lives of other people in very real ways.

Statistics like this are generally not rigorously calculated.

This unique phenomenon will pass as we learn to cope with vast amounts of data.

This technological shift will have profound effects on the course of human history.

This will turbocharge science, which will no longer rely exclusively on slow observations in real time.

It is a safe bet that no one has ever asked that question before, and yet this system is designed to answer it.

Imagine what can be culled from this data.

Additionally, right below that is a section called, "What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?"

Well, obviously, Amazon is able to collect this data as they make sales.

The salesperson offers, "I find that my customers who buy this suit almost always get wingtips."

After a few minutes more, you decide this really isn't the suit for you.

So the salesperson says, "If you like that suit, then come over here and try this one from Ralph Lauren."

This scene, in one form or another, should seem familiar.

It took him most of his life to do this, and the value was engraved on his tombstone.

The machine will figure this out as it collects more data and incorporates more variables, and then experiments on people to see which combinations of factors work the best.

Armed with this data, it will suggest different products to me than to you.

No human could ever do this, for in these purely computational matters, machines are vastly superior to us, and always will be.

Humans should not feel threatened in any way by this, and yet it still makes some people defensive and uncomfortable.

So when I knocked on the door of Jim's atelier and said, "Hey, I'm Byron Reese," he said, "Oh, Byron, come over here, I want you to meet this guy.

He once said he does all this because he wants to introduce everyone in the world to everyone else.

I like this goal, and I would like to do it as well, but in bits, not bites.

How would this work?

How might this work?

The system will also look for anything they've written publicly about this place (Yelp, Facebook, personal blog) and which superlatives they used to describe it.

This system will look at all the restaurants across the country (even around the world) where you have dined frequently.

This system will look at all the Italian restaurants around the country that you already like and look at all the ingredients they order online and look for restaurants in San Francisco using the same set of ingredients.

It will look at all this and a million other factors that would seem to be unrelated.

Over time, we will feel that kind of confidence in this kind of system.

This gives me confidence that, in the wisdom-seeking systems of the future, people will be willing to share data to make the algorithms better.

Clearly, this already happens today, in a primitive form.

In almost all aspects of life, the application of this process will bring improvements.

To that definition, I would respectfully offer this qualification: I would say that disease has a well-defined center and very fuzzy edges.

Under what conditions can we claim victory in this war on disease?

Does this have to be the case?

So how about this instead: What if I can show you a future where everyone on the planet will live in good health as long as it is possible for their body to live?

Let's look at how this happened.

This goal is within our grasp—and with the vaccine presently priced at about thirty cents a child, shame on us for not ending polio once and for all.

How did this happen?

And Jenner had created this vaccine for smallpox without even understanding the basics of germ theory!

If my reasoning elsewhere in this book is correct, we are moving toward a future where there will be nothing but healthy, well-developed, rich countries with modern infrastructure.

Louis Pasteur came along around this same time and proffered the germ theory of disease and a vaccine for rabies.

Given all this, do you really believe this disease still has a chance?

Imagine a computer culling through this massive amount of data, inconceivably large, and pulling out patterns.

A finding might look like this: "People who eat radishes get better slightly more frequently than people who don't."

The machines surface this information.

This method will allow us to treat the entire world as a controlled experiment in retrospect.

You can see where this is headed.

My guess is we won't have to absorb all this information.

This future will begin gradually.

Once this ball gets rolling, it will speed up and, because of it, we will all wake up each morning with a little extra spring in our step and sparkle in our eye.

Once the promise of this world comes to be, new ways will be created to measure even more data.

Then, you will search to see if other people have this same problem.

You won't be able to identify the other people; you will simply see that 1600 other people seem to have this same corn dog issue.

Groups of people will do science this same way.

Finally, this system will not just solve for human illness, but all kinds of other problems as well.

Let's look at this from its beginning.

This was an electrifying discovery to the whole world.

But no one had any idea of the mechanism by which this could be achieved.

Then the scientific race of the century was on, with this goal: to figure out how DNA conveyed genetic information.

This is all very critical.

How will all of this help us end disease?

We have already seen this method work.

Knowing this allowed for the creation of a drug called Imatinib, which inhibits this process.

By doing this, we will come to understand those conditions better and perhaps prevent them.

But my guess is that we will be able to do this and even make existing "good" genes perform better.

How can we not be excited about the possibilities this offers?

It boggles the mind, especially when you consider that this science is in its infancy.

This is powerful; it allows the best and brightest to collaborate easily.

This will likely not ever be perfect, but any insight it can offer us is a gain.

I did not ask the American Medical Association their opinion of this arrangement.

In any event, this much is certain: We will see medical advances in the future that seem impossible today.

This is a good thing because it means that high degrees of utility (the economists' word for "happiness") can be achieved with a wide variety of goods.

Puppies are like this too.

Even with this technology called money, trade has been difficult.

Trade is not like this at all.

We have seen this happen already, and it will get substantially better in the near future.

It would not take much of this for businesses to no longer take credit cards.

Could you have imagined a store like this if you lived a century ago?

This has no offline corollary and is economically empowering to so many people. 5. eBay and reallocating existing goods. eBay is actually a little like direct trade.

This works toward maximizing the utility that item can bring to someone. eBay is not alone in this regard.

This works toward maximizing the utility that item can bring to someone. eBay is not alone in this regard.

This is not possible without the Internet. 6.

Good information on a product can mitigate this problem.

The Internet solves for this in a way no library ever could. 7.

This could not be done without the Internet. 8.

This is unprecedented in the history of commerce and could not be done without the Internet. 9.

This could not be done without the Internet. 9.

This makes business a meritocracy and encourages business owners to focus on quality, service, and reputation since these are so easy for customers to check.

This could not be done without the Internet. 10.

This could not be done without the Internet.

How can this be?

And in this efficiency that is generated by specialization, wealth is created.

You figure out how to make your widget from this new plastic.

This increase in utility is the same as generating wealth.

This is because technology is cumulative.

This will bring vast amounts of new wealth onto the planet.

We won't talk at this point about the distribution of that wealth; that will come later.

I won't base my reasoning for how the Internet and technology will end poverty on this idea alone.

Vastly more energy than we need pours down on this planet in the form of sunlight.

Think about this: Nearly four million exajoules of energy is absorbed by the earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land each year.

Everyone knows water evaporates, rises, then falls to the earth as rain—but no one can even guess how much energy could be captured from this if we only knew how.

We know how to power a clock with this energy but haven't yet cracked the code on doing it at scale.

I believe this is the case with energy.

We have a hard time seeing this world without scarcity because we are firmly planted in the worldview of scarcity.

(I answered, "They should get jobs at the factory that would make the lawnmowers; it would pay better.") Personal computers and the Internet have come under criticism in this regard.

I knew typesetters who said computers would never duplicate their quality; travel agents who said the Internet would never replace them, and whose stockbrokers reassured them this was true.

This displacement is in no way finished; in fact, it has hardly begun.

We'll look at their lives, and the social aspects of this change, in a coming chapter called "Left Behind."

First, let's consider the macroeconomic impact of this change—the effect it will have on the net economic status of the planet.

My purpose in this chapter will not be to persuade the reader of any political doctrine of trade; please apply your own political and social values as you see fit.

If prices for an item fall, this is a net good.

A textbook example of this is Eli Whitney and the cotton gin.

Even though this allowed cotton prices to plummet and demand for cotton to increase, some of those fifty people got laid off, no doubt shaking their fists at the infernal gin as they stormed off the property.

But even in this case, the result is still a massive overall gain in efficiency.

This is all hypothetical.

This is seldom discussed but very real.

However, the company likely won't choose this outcome because the $10 cost of cleanup is not paid by the company but by society.

This is known as "internalizing externalities."

This is one of the few areas in which government taxation actually leads to a more efficient outcome.

You could finance the entire government and its (hopefully) noble agenda, by this method alone.

To some extent, we have this in the form of high taxes on cigarettes, which are seen to have negative externalities, and a home interest deduction on income taxes, as home ownership is viewed as having positive social good.

The business looks at this new country and decides to move there because, from their standpoint, they can save costs and be more efficient.

But realize, no new net efficiencies are gained from this move.

This action makes the price of a burger go up by $1,000 and drops demand to zero.

We only have people doing this work because we have not yet developed the technology to get machines to do it.

This leads me to my second italicized statement:

The next chapter will explore how far this can go, how many of our daily tasks machines could assume.

If this is not the case, people will not trade their labor for things that can easily or capriciously be taken away. 3.

In this regard, they are little different than talking dogs in cartoons.

We need no far-out scenarios to see how this will change the world.

And the principle at work in this technology could lead to a cure for other autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

I branched off into this discussion of robots and nanites to give an idea of the kinds of massive gains in efficiency with declining costs.

This is almost the definition of wealth creation.

If we obtained this ten-thousand-fold increase simply by allowing specialization and dividing work up among people, then what astronomical gains will we achieve by outsourcing that work to robots capable of working with unimaginable precision at unimaginable speed?

So, how many thousands of times more will this increase our productivity?

I find this very easy to accept.

I'll make this case for you.

This 4,000MB (or 4GB) of memory cost a bit more than $200.

I doubt this, though.

This is not Enron-esque accounting chicanery.

This is basic economics.

This pan's nanite coating means to clean it, you just wipe it with a nanite rag that doesn't stain.

This pan will cost a dollar.

Yes, I know this sounds like one of those bad infomercials.

Buying this pan for a dollar basically gets you a $2,000 benefit.

So whether you are rich or poor in the future, you will own this pan and get this benefit.

This is a form of wealth.

As I observed a few pages ago in "Let Robots Be Robots," an intelligent system like this won't be creepy because we do not want it to be creepy.

This house will be cheaper to build than a house today and worth vastly more to you for all the cool things it does.

How do you put a price on this house?

I would love to write more and more about this topic, about how things will get better and cheaper in the future.

This will create a cascading effect; once energy, for instance, is free, it will make precious metals free.

But let's say only 10 percent of industries will experience this thousandfold increase in productivity.

On balance, this will be a hundredfold increase in productivity.

This is because, as noted before, technology amplifies the productive effort of people.

But this is merely a footnote, an asterisk in the record book of humanity.

This per-person threshold actually exceeds the average income of three-quarters of the countries on the planet, including Mexico, Russia, and Brazil, and is about 20 percent higher than the average income of the entire planet.

This speaks to the fabulous wealth of this country and how our expectation of material possessions has risen so fast that we have redefined poverty to include what once were deemed luxury items.

This speaks to the fabulous wealth of this country and how our expectation of material possessions has risen so fast that we have redefined poverty to include what once were deemed luxury items.

This dance has happened more times than a weary historian can count.

The United Kingdom famously did this after World War II by raising marginal tax rates on earned income to more than 99 percent and, for some other kinds of income, to more than 100 percent.

This approach has a long and mostly negative history.

Long term, this hurts nations more than expropriation has helped them.

This is a straight shot to economic poverty for any country desperate enough to try it.

Cynics view this as the rich paying off the poor to keep them from revolting.

Nations can do this by acquiring enough military might that an attempted land grab would cost their neighbors more than they would get if successful.

This usually comes in the form of protecting their citizenry from crime.

They coin money in honest and accurate measures and allow this money to trade freely on open markets.

This might be the adoption of commercial standards as well as the creation and operation of a civil court system and laws.

People broadly agree that government should do at least this much.

Some believe this is the beginning and end of the role of government.

This seems a bit counterintuitive.

But this is not the case historically.

It is safe to say that more than a majority of people in rich nations feel this way.

Historically, and one can certainly make the case in the present time, this ultimately bankrupts societies.

We've seen this: If you are running for president of the United States, merely using the words "freeze" and "Social Security" in the same sentence has the retirees of the nation heating up pots of tar and emptying their down pillows.

Why do I say this ultimately bankrupts nations?

No student of history would argue this point, regardless of his or her politics.

But think of it this way: Before, you made $33,000 and paid 40 percent in taxes, so you were left with $20,000 in take-home pay.

Is there anything wrong with you collecting this dividend check for which you did no work at all?

Now, is this welfare?

This is simply returning to the people a portion of income from land that is publicly owned.

This income will not be regarded as welfare.

It will be regarded as a dividend of the work of the one hundred prior generations that got the world to this point.

Is there a logical end to that—a physical or economic law of some kind that says only 10 percent or 20 percent or 30 percent of people can ever be this wealthy?

This is not socialism.

This world will gradually come to us.

As we start heading toward this world without want, there will be sizable disruptions in the normal fabric of life.

When I talk about this future, a future in which machines will do more and more of the work people do now, I always get some variant of the same question: What about the people who lose their jobs to machines and don't have any other skills?

First, I would contend that the size of this problem is substantially smaller than many people would guess.

To the extent this world is a meritocracy, the most talented will be the movie star and the least talented will be hauling manure.

And yet, we know of no cases of mass "left behind-ness," of people unable to learn how to function in this environment.

It may seem intuitive at first glance, this idea that somehow there are only so many jobs and if you replace people with machines, people have fewer jobs.

This list is unending.

This idea that there are a finite number of jobs misses the point entirely of what makes a job.

In the prosperous future, one group of people will rise to this challenge.

In this world, humans have grown fat, stopped walking, and fill their days with non-stop entertainment and food.

This pattern suggests freedom from financial want would be bad.

This is the state of much of humanity.

The rich have always had this luxury.

Often when I discuss this idea with people, they bring up an objection I have come to call The Spoiled Rich Kid Problem.

It goes something like this: If everyone is "rich," then doesn't everyone just become the idle rich?

Nobody is particularly snooty in this world, right?

Or these jobs can be divorced from economic realities, as the struggling painter or actor decides simply to do what he loves and live off the minimum income afforded by this planet-wide prosperity.

I almost cut this entire section from the book.

This simply is not the case.

But before the twentieth century, this was not the case and actual famines were much more common.

This would be the case in a besieged city or a nation using the food supply to keep its citizenry in check.

This kind of hunger is common and generally is what has triggered food riots, now and in the past.

It is fascinating reading to this day because the things he notes about the American character are still very much with us.

This can-do, care-for-our-own spirit permeated the nation.

In a speech to the House of Representatives at this same time, Congressman Davy Crockett told the story of getting chewed out by a constituent for voting for a $20,000 emergency relief bill for the homeless in a city just wiped out by a fire.

This all began to change in the twentieth century for a variety of reasons.

After this came the Great Depression, which so overwhelmed the social support structures that Americans turned to the government for help and have never turned back.

This abuse resulted in an overhaul of the system that sought to tie the poor to their original parish.

This involved making the poor wear prison uniforms and only providing enough food to avoid starvation.

And that doesn't even count the many other charitable organizations that have not filed for this tax-exempt status with the federal government.

An important point to make here is this: Historically, the welfare state only emerges to solve problems that private charities either cannot or will not solve.

How is this need filled without government involvement?

This is the case on genetically modified crops and many other issues where passions run high.

Why is this the case?

If this chapter angers the Right and Left, the Greens and Browns, the capitalists and socialists, the nutritionists and farmers, I apologize to all in advance.

At every turn, this becomes more difficult to study.

This makes a great deal of sense: If nutrition isn't governed by universal laws (as physics is) and instead affects different people differently, then the way you will know certain things is by learning through trial and error, through your own experience.

This approach, however, has a couple of downsides.

This is how people are.

Again, this is because without compelling, widely accepted facts, we use things we've learned from other parts of our lives to make our decisions.

The Internet will solve for this problem.

This will produce extremely specific nutritional information for just you, will add years to your life, and will increase its quality as well.

Nations with high percentages of hungry citizens are not universally food exporters, and we will explore this more later.

It is most unlikely that this process of improvement will not continue in the future.

And that is paying full retail prices in an air-conditioned Western supermarket; by the ton, this food costs much less.

This is less than one-half of 1 percent of world GNP.

To me, this makes the problem of hunger that much sadder in the present—to realize that the planet has enough food, just not enough generosity.

This leads to the proverbial "lean years" and "fat years."

Without this, it is impossible to farm at scale.

This is basically the situation in many of earth's chronically hungry countries.

(Well, I personally have not; I have regressed from this state.

I think we are still at the donkey stage—and this is good news!

Let me explain this characterization.

Many of the people Borlaug worked with at this time were poor, even starving.

All of this left scars on me.

This speech was a pivotal event in Borlaug's life.

This Cooperative Wheat Research Production Program, in which Borlaug took part, aimed to boost Mexican wheat production.

Throughout this time, Borlaug constantly battled wheat's arch-nemesis: rust, a fungus that feeds on wheat, oats, and barley.

Based on this unprecedented success, samples of Borlaug's seeds were sent abroad.

This was a guy from a small town in Iowa who failed his 1933 entrance exam to the University of Minnesota.

But if ever there was a textbook case of one guy making a difference, this is it.

(We see this same principle with different breeds of dogs.

As I write this, it is down to 2 percent.

How can this be?

I know this sounds awful to a lot of people.

I consider this all good.

First, this future farm I describe is nothing like what I go out of my way to avoid today.

This dairyman also makes some of the milk into cheese and we use a lot of that as well.

If you are not familiar with this whole issue, look into it; it is fascinating and, I think, important.

I write this to establish my bona fides as someone who truly cares about good food.

The mass food industry of today cannot make this claim.

But when the farm of tomorrow delivers on this holistic promise, I think all people will embrace it.

I am certain this idea is going to take some time to get used to.

Think of it this way.

The point is this: GMO crops are everywhere.

This is a form of genetic modification.

If the first order of genetic modification is deliberately keeping desirable mutations, then this is the second order: creating conditions for such genetic modifications to occur more rapidly.

This change could have occurred in nature; given enough monkeys and typewriters, it would eventually occur in nature.

At this point, things get harder.

But again, this could happen in nature, so it is hard to see how we can object to this.

This couldn't happen in nature (or, more precisely, could in theory, but is extremely unlikely).

This is the part that makes some people even more nervous.

This is especially unfortunate because a major crop in Africa, grain sorghum, has a somewhat indigestible protein which our bodies have a hard time metabolizing.

This is exactly the kind of problem geneticists can sink their teeth into, so to speak, to make the protein in this grain digestible.

This is exactly the kind of problem geneticists can sink their teeth into, so to speak, to make the protein in this grain digestible.

GMO could make this a crop that Africa could easily use to feed itself, gain food independence, and maybe even export.

This fuel, he believes, will be vastly better than anything we currently produce.

This is not science fiction.

By taking this "Absolutely no GMOs" stance they completely remove themselves from the debate and as such have no voice in the discussion about what direction to take GM: what are safe testing practices, what factors will we optimize for, and the whole host of questions that face us on this, the eve of a momentous leap forward.

Weigh that against the certainty that nearly a billion people are hungry right now and I don't know why we would decline to acquire this knowledge.

Part of this will be enabled by very cheap sensors embedded in the things you use.

This same technology will allow farming to be much, much more efficient.

If this sounds absurd, at present it is—but in the future, the price of technologies to do this will fall to nearly zero.

I know it sounds all futuristic and expensive now, but what if this technology falls to just a few dollars per acre?

This has been a common situation throughout areas with high degrees of poverty and is certainly the case in Ethiopia.

Eleni is CEO of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, which works like this: Farmers in Ethiopia bring their crops to any of two hundred market centers around the country.

This is made possible by technology and the Internet, which is used to connect buyers and sellers worldwide and bring information (world commodity prices) to the far reaches of the globe.

The United Nations World Food Programme was so inspired by this success that pilot programs for an exchange were launched in twenty-one countries.

Information plus sophisticated markets make this possible.

All that we have explored in this section—rising incomes, advances in nutrition and genomics, innovations in agricultural technologies—will eventually end hunger.

I do not say this to advance any political doctrine.

During this three-year period, conveniently named by the Chinese "The Three Years of Natural Disasters," no one really knows how many people died; estimates range from fifteen million to a high of more than forty-five million.

Roosevelt went on to outline what he believed would be in this Second Bill of Rights: food, medicine, shelter, and so on.

But this is a misreading of both Roosevelt and history.

I hope that someday the whole world has only this nation's level of problems.

I do not think Americans would tolerate widespread, untreated hunger in this nation as long as it could afford otherwise.

If you knew someone who was a good business partner, was fun to hang out with, but let one of his children starve to death so that he could enjoy a higher standard of living, what would be your opinion of this person?

We know all this is true because we see signs of it already.

All this will happen eventually, I believe, even if global hunger policy were not to change one iota.

In this case, sooner is so much better than later.

Throughout this book, I've insisted the way to know the future is by studying the past.

Do not expect this to be a uniformly reassuring journey; it may be more of a roller-coaster ride with some rather bleak descents.

Maybe you will agree it to be possible, but after reading this chapter, you will likely think it is improbable.

No silver bullet is in this chapter, no "aha" insight that will instantly persuade you.

I outline forty-five different ways this will happen—surely enough that even if you don't agree with them all, you will still have plenty of reason to be optimistic.

I will spare my readers a description of this other than to say it is exactly what it sounds like.

This is how people lived their lives in the past and if asked about it, they would have defended it.

The only thing that separates us from that world is this thing called civilization.

This is not a defense of our present age; we will come to our own report card soon enough.

As recently as 1900, most of the world was governed this way.

This too is becoming widely accepted.

More and more, those wishing to change the status quo adopt this as their primary tactic.

They do this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it often works.

It is through this civilizing process that I find hope we will end war.

Maybe this is dawning on us.

We will see how this might come to pass—but first, let's ask whether it must.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

This is not a way of life ...

After speaking about the economic costs of war, the burden it places on the economy, and the toll this takes on the people, Eisenhower closed by describing the peace proposals he was offering Russia and China.

Journalist Brooks Atkinson, said: "After each war, there is a little less democracy left to save."

Albert Einstein reflected this when he famously said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

But in the future this will not be the case.

This is not semantics.

This is not a section about hope, ideals, wishes, or the brotherhood of all mankind.

The word kumbaya appears in this book only once, and you just saw it.

This is not me fighting against the tide of history but being swept along with it.

By this means, we largely keep the peace.

This promotes freedom and self-rule.

So, when I tell you we will see the end of war, if you are over thirty-five years of age, you have every reason to roll your eyes and tell me you have seen this movie before and aren't up for the sequel.

I can easily list a half-dozen reasons this goal will be difficult to achieve.

But this politics of war have in fact worked this way repeated, across place and time.

In this chapter, I offer forty-three developments, dynamics, and new realities I believe will work together to bring about an end to war.

When I first made this list, it had well over one hundred entries.

This need for competition existed in the past the same as it does in the present.

It is this combined with the fact that their targets, too, are worth more; the cost of rebuilding a modern city today dwarfs the cost of rebuilding that city fifty years ago.

This has to be a serious deterrent to Japan (as an example).

This unquestionably is good.

The seventeenth-century Spanish writer Baltasar Gracián once offered this advice: "Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose."

Since the poorest nations will improve their financial conditions indefinitely, this is a long-term trend toward peace.

War disrupts this, and people will have little patience for it if there is not an extremely compelling reason for it.

After reading this, I decided I concur.

This isn't the final triumph of consumerism—nothing nearly that sinister.

This is not to say that if another Pearl Harbor or another 9/11 occurred, people in any country wouldn't rise to the occasion and make great sacrifices if needed.

By the time Eisenhower left office, this had changed, and a dedicated military industry existed.

This means that non-military manufacturing interests in the United States no longer profit as in the past from war.

This is not to say that businesses are so materialistic they will favor a war to get a government contract.

Is this situation really preferable from a business standpoint?

Even if you don't accept this, try to accept that war is financially disadvantageous to 99 percent of the business owners in the country and that this is new and meaningful.

This promotes peace and deters war.

This is simply another form of trade, so some might accuse me of double counting some of my forty-three reasons war will end.

Because of this, "two bits" is still slang for twenty-five cents in the United States.

Arrangements like this are commonplace, although largely hidden from view.

All this together means that our economic fates are more intertwined than ever.

The arch not only celebrates this military victory, it points out that it was profitable.

Asymmetry upsets this applecart.

Notable examples exist, but the flow of history in this regard has rendered its verdict.

Because this is the only power they know, it is the only power they respect.

This led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.

This included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

This has come about as we have left a polarized world behind us and the importance of military alliances has fallen.

This is exactly the sort of thinking that makes nation-states useful.

Once this became known, the question was submitted for arbitration to the king of the Netherlands, who ruled the St. John River to be the border.

This was fine with Great Britain but not with Maine.

All this seemed perfectly normal.

It was a huge shift in public opinion in which no group benefited financially; if anything, financial interests were aligned against this change, just as with tobacco.

Some might argue this is not in and of itself a force for peace.

I don't think this is likely, though.

This was done in large part because the two powers came so close to going to war over the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This is starkly different than if violence breaks out in a distant, unreal place where the only flow of information is from official sources.

I include Twitter in this list as a larger idea, not only as the literal Twitter.com.

Despite being the most efficient method ever, it is still highly inefficient, and this inefficiency inspires hope.

And through this, peace is promoted.

This is not a particularly new idea, similar to the phenomenon of getting to know and care about "pen pals" in far-flung places by exchanging postal-mail letters.

Friedman goes on to point out that almost anywhere in the world today, it would be impossible to get away with this fraud.

This is no longer the case.

This is unquestionably good.

If this happens, the government becomes an agent that works against the very ideals it purports to protect.

Frequently, this includes individual liberty and freedom of expression.

And this is a force for peace.

But a sizable number are attempting this, and the direction the world is heading is obvious.

This was the strategy in Tehran, Tunisia, Cairo, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Lebanon, and Kuwait.

Maybe you don't think this deserves its own point.

We saw the results of this in the 2009 Iranian protests, when these devices captured and relayed powerful, real-time images of events.

All of this means examples of atrocities by the government or by the mob are increasingly likely to be documented and publicized.

In the end, this means more peace.

I know this is a controversial forecast, and to many people a very depressing one, but I think it is both inevitable and good.

Would you regard this as good?

These nations will play a substantial role in shaping this new English, as they bring grammatical structure, idioms, and nuanced words from their native tongue.

As difficult as it might be to "let go," this is good for peace.

It seems fitting to end this part of the list—ways that information and communication will help end war—by noting that every day, every moment, more and more people have access to the Internet.

It is to this end that we want to educate you ...

This list goes on, but I will spare you.

This all leads to more peaceful states.

This is because, like technology, money also multiplies the labor of man.

We see this process democratized and popularized in the world today.

This is a force for peace, as more and more people have family members in more than one culture and share the interests of more than one nationality.

This is a reassuring trend.

This gave people a shared set of cultural references.

The United States contributes much to this, including its movies, products such as iPhones, and websites such as Google, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and eBay.

This is a force for peace—to the extent that as we share the same set of cultural references, we understand each other better.

Against this backdrop, YouTube appears.

From the way I have written this, it is clear where my sympathies lie.

This civilizing process seems to be picking up steam.

This is the present reality in a world defined by the ease of communication.

There are pros and cons to this, to be sure, but overall, this has increased our empathy.

The world is happiest when this process is one of persuasion, goodwill, reason, logic, and negotiation.

This is how our Founding Fathers intended our nation to behave: To try to achieve our foreign policy aims through negotiation and, if that failed, through economic sanctions.

So let's address it head-on: In this world of the future, do we lose our humanity?

That's what interests me about this story (which may or may not be purely true): What Simonides did—recalling the names and locations of everyone at a large banquet—is described as entirely possible and an enviable, practical skill.

Two millennia later, it is fair to assume that humans are still capable of this kind of memory.

But with rare exceptions, we simply don't train our brains to do this particular task.

Augustine said this could not be the case because he could neither hear Ambrose nor see his lips moving.

Augustine records that this idea blew his mind (or words to that effect).

At times, we still do this today.

In this way, you are processing aurally, which is much slower but more focused than silent reading.

I owe this passion to my high school friend Jason.

Though the world foreseen in this book may seem far away to you, I believe it will be achieved—and once achieved, that it will grow in stability over time.

Through all of this, we can end war by making it a worse choice than the status quo for everyone. 3.

Certainly this could happen, although the odds are remote.

As troubling as this thought is, equally troubling would be the response of the country so attacked.

Love it or hate it, this seems to be where we are going.

Four of the problems I address in this book—ignorance, disease, famine, and poverty—are purely technical problems.

Many technological problems I don't address in this book, but I believe technology will provide solutions for those also.

When confronted with any thorny societal problem, I apply the same basic thought process I used on the five topics of this book.

This book began with the assertion that it is the optimists who get things done.

Pessimism is all the reasons "this won't work."

This book is a call to action, not complacency.

I hope that, after reading this far, you appreciate that for our age, this is no idle boast.

How can this future I describe not be ours?

But I cannot remember any instance in which this feeling prevented me from repeating the naughtiness when I failed to get what I wanted.

I did not then know why Belle acted in this way; but I knew she was not doing as I wished.

This vexed me and the lesson always ended in a one-sided boxing match.

This most naughty prank of mine convinced my parents that I must be taught as soon as possible.

I imitated this action, even wearing his spectacles, thinking they might help solve the mystery.

It was the most comical shapeless thing, this improvised doll, with no nose, mouth, ears or eyes--nothing that even the imagination of a child could convert into a face.

I pointed this out to everybody with provoking persistency, but no one seemed equal to the task of providing the doll with eyes.

This was in the summer of 1886.

Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.

The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward.

In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk.

This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

But about this time I had an experience which taught me that nature is not always kind.

After this experience it was a long time before I climbed another tree.

This was before I knew many words.

Is this not love?

Is this not love?

For a long time I was still--I was not thinking of the beads in my lap, but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of this new idea.

Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"

This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf child.

My teacher, realizing this, determined to supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked.

This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation.

How much more this difficulty must be augmented in the case of those who are both deaf and blind!

Nothing delighted me so much as this game.

Added to this she had a wonderful faculty for description.

I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles confused and teased my mind.

The illustrative strings and the orange stick representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the mere mention of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and I believe that if any one should set about it he could convince me that white bears actually climb the North Pole.

In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.

In the pleasure of doing this, I did not stop to look at my own gifts; but when I was ready for them, my impatience for the real Christmas to begin almost got beyond control.

How different this journey was from the one I had made to Baltimore two years before!

This was too much for poor Nancy.

This was my first trip on the ocean and my first voyage in a steamboat.

This feat pleased me highly, as his body was very heavy, and it took all my strength to drag him half a mile.

We would have taken any way rather than this; but it was late and growing dark, and the trestle was a short cut home.

Even this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan began to teach me.

This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled.

Friends tried to discourage this tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment.

But I persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of this great barrier--I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.

Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished telling me about this girl's success before I was on fire with eagerness.

This lovely, sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the twenty-sixth of March, 1890.

Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made a sound.

But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this short time.

All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can at all appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to contend.

In reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on my fingers: I had to use the sense of touch in catching the vibrations of the throat, the movements of the mouth and the expression of the face; and often this sense was at fault.

This question surprised me very much; for I had not the faintest recollection of having had it read to me.

This was the pinnacle of my happiness, from which I was in a little while dashed to earth.

It was difficult to make me understand this; but when I did understand I was astonished and grieved.

I think if this sorrow had come to me when I was older, it would have broken my spirit beyond repairing.

But this kind prophecy has never been fulfilled.

At the time I was writing "The Frost King," and this letter, like many others, contains phrases which show that my mind was saturated with the story.

This habit of assimilating what pleased me and giving it out again as my own appears in much of my early correspondence and my first attempts at writing.

It is only after years of this sort of practice that even great men have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging through every byway of the mind.

So this sad experience may have done me good and set me thinking on some of the problems of composition.

At other times, in the midst of a paragraph I was writing, I said to myself, "Suppose it should be found that all this was written by some one long ago!"

They are always asking: What does this beauty or that music mean to you?

At a little distance from this ship there was a model of the Santa Maria, which I also examined.

It was a sort of tangible kaleidoscope, this white city of the West.

I have never ceased to enjoy this pastime.

When I was not guessing, I was jumping at conclusions, and this fault, in addition to my dullness, aggravated my difficulties more than was right or necessary.

I never lost a jot of my delight in this great park.

This was the nearest approach I could get to Harvard and to the fulfillment of my childish declaration.

I wish to say here that I have not had this advantage since in any of my examinations.

This encouraged me greatly, and I sped on to the end of the ordeal with a light heart and a steady hand.

Mr. Gilman at first agreed to this; but when my tasks had become somewhat perplexing, he insisted that I was overworked, and that I should remain at his school three years longer.

In this way my preparation for college went on without interruption.

It is true that I was familiar with all literary braille in common use in this country--English, American, and New York Point; but the various signs and symbols in geometry and algebra in the three systems are very different, and I had used only the English braille in my algebra.

With this machine movable type shuttles can be used, and one can have several shuttles, each with a different set of characters--Greek, French, or mathematical, according to the kind of writing one wishes to do on the typewriter.

It comes over me that in the last two or three pages of this chapter I have used figures which will turn the laugh against me.

I read my first connected story in May, 1887, when I was seven years old, and from that day to this I have devoured everything in the shape of a printed page that has come within the reach of my hungry finger tips.

This thought pervades all German literature and is mystically expressed in Goethe's "Faust":

This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense--a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.

I take all my other friends to see this king-tree.

There is a tradition that under this tree King Philip, the heroic Indian chief, gazed his last on earth and sky.

As soon as my examinations were over, Miss Sullivan and I hastened to this green nook, where we have a little cottage on one of the three lakes for which Wrentham is famous.

Oh, man, how dost thou forget and obstruct thy brother man, and say, "Give us this day our daily bread," when he has none!

It is impossible not to think of all this when I return to the country after a year of work in town.

Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses.

This reminds me that Dr. Hale used to give a personal touch to his letters to me by pricking his signature in braille.

Three months and a half after the first word was spelled into her hand, she wrote in pencil this letter

This letter is to a school-mate at the Perkins Institution.

This morning Lucien Thompson sent me a beautiful bouquet of violets and crocuses and jonquils.

In this account of the picnic we get an illuminating glimpse of Miss Sullivan's skill in teaching her pupil during play hours.

This was a day when the child's vocabulary grew.

This letter, written three months later, shows how well she remembered her first lesson in history.

It was in this way that she learned to use correctly words of sound and vision which express ideas outside of her experience.

I am so glad that Eva is coming to stay with me this summer.

Like a good many of Helen Keller's early letters, this to her French teacher is her re-phrasing of a story.

This letter is to the editor of the Boston Herald, enclosing a complete list of the subscribers.

It is Sunday morning, and while I sit here in the library writing this letter you are teaching hundreds of people some of the grand and beautiful things about their heavenly Father.

At the time this trouble seemed very grave and brought them much unhappiness.

This letter was reproduced in facsimile in St. Nicholas, June, 1892.

This wonderful world with all its sunlight and beauty was hidden from me, and I had never dreamed of its loveliness.

I send you with this letter a pretty book which my teacher thinks will interest you, and my picture.

In reading this letter about Niagara one should remember that Miss Keller knows distance and shape, and that the size of Niagara is within her experience after she has explored it, crossed the bridge and gone down in the elevator.

This was the surprise--I was to have the pleasure of taking my dear teacher to see Niagara Falls!...

The President of the Exposition gave her this letter:

A spiral stairway leads from the base of this pedestal to the torch.

I had known about them for a long time; but I had never thought that I should see them, and talk to them; and I can scarcely realize now that this great pleasure has been mine!

Our friends were greatly surprised to see us, as they had not expected us before the last of this month.

We think of you so, so often! and our hearts go out to you in tenderest sympathy; and you know better than this poor letter can tell you how happy we always are to have you with us!

But, however this may be, I cannot now write the letter which has lain in my thought for you so long.

The "examinations" mentioned in this letter were merely tests given in the school, but as they were old Harvard papers, it is evident that in some subjects Miss Keller was already fairly well prepared for Radcliffe.

This year is going to be a very busy one for Teacher and myself.

But Johnson, and "The Plague" and everything else must wait a few minutes this afternoon, while I say, thank you, my dear Mrs. Hutton....

We have had some splendid toboganning this month.

This morning I rode over twelve miles on my tandem!

This is the first opportunity I have had to write to you since we came here last Monday.

You will be glad to hear that my mother, and little sister and brother are coming north to spend this summer with me.

She reads the lips well, and if she cannot understand a phrase, her friends write it in her hand, and in this way she converses with strangers.

This arrangement worked very well in the languages, but not nearly so well in the Mathematics.

Miss Irwin seemed to have no objection to this proposal, and kindly offered to see the professors and find out if they would give me lessons.

Dear Frau Grote learned the manual alphabet, and used to teach me herself; but this was in private lessons, which were paid for by my friends.

Perhaps, if you would send a copy of this to the head of the Cambridge School, it might enlighten his mind on a few subjects, on which he seems to be in total darkness just now....

I considered this suggestion carefully, then I told Mr. Rhoades that I should be proud and glad to have wise friends to whom I could always turn for advice in all important matters.

This morning we received word that mother had given her consent to this arrangement.

This morning we received word that mother had given her consent to this arrangement.

I had had misgivings on this point; but I could not see how we were to help it.

She has never been taught; but they say she can sew and likes to help others in this sort of work.

I was much surprised to hear all this; for I judged from your letters that Katie was a very precocious girl....

This little boy could speak two or three languages before he lost his hearing through sickness, and he is now only about five years old.

It is fitting that Miss Keller's "Story of My Life" should appear at this time.

In this way she is able to get the meaning of those half sentences which we complete unconsciously from the tone of the voice or the twinkle of the eye.

It was this same perseverance that made her go to college.

Sometimes she puts her hand on a singer's throat to feel the muscular thrill and contraction, and from this she gets genuine pleasure.

This sense is not, however, so finely developed as in some other blind people.

If more people knew this, and the friends and relatives of deaf children learned the manual alphabet at once the deaf all over the world would be happier and better educated.

Sometimes this finger-play is unconscious.

As her intellect grew she became less dependent on this sense.

This much is certain, she cannot have any sense that other people may not have, and the existence of a special sense is not evident to her or to any one who knows her.

The point of this gold indicator bends over the edge of the case, round which are set eleven raised points--the stem forms the twelfth.

This in itself is a great comment on the difference between Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller.

In some ways this is unfortunate.

For this report Miss Sullivan prepared, in reluctant compliance with the request of Mr. Anagnos, an account of her work.

This with the extracts from her letters, scattered through the report, is the first valid source of information about Helen Keller.

Of this report Miss Sullivan wrote in a letter dated October 30, 1887:

For this report Miss Sullivan wrote the fullest and largest account she has ever written; and in this report appeared the "Frost King," which is discussed fully in a later chapter.

During this time she read Dr. Howe's reports.

Her mother interfered at this point and showed Helen by signs that she must not touch the bag.

She was very troublesome when I began to write this morning.

This time she put on the glass bead first and the two wooden ones next.

I thought this very clever.

I know this letter is very carelessly written.

I had a battle royal with Helen this morning.

This morning I would not let her put her hand in my plate.

She kept this up for half an hour, then she got up to see what I was doing.

This lasted for several minutes; then this mood passed, and Nancy was thrown ruthlessly on the floor and pushed to one side, while a large, pink-cheeked, fuzzy-haired member of the family received the little mother's undivided attention.

This lasted for several minutes; then this mood passed, and Nancy was thrown ruthlessly on the floor and pushed to one side, while a large, pink-cheeked, fuzzy-haired member of the family received the little mother's undivided attention.

We had a good frolic this morning out in the garden.

Doesn't it seem strange that Mr. Anagnos never referred to this interview?

My heart is singing for joy this morning.

She learned the stitch this week, and is very proud of the achievement.

Helen has learned several nouns this week.

This pleased her very much and stimulated her ambition to excel Percy.

One day this week Captain Keller brought Belle, a setter of which he is very proud, to see us.

She noticed this at once and made the sign for it.

I repeated this performance several times.

I took this for a promise that if I gave her some cake she would be a good girl.

This morning she planted her doll and showed me that she expected her to grow as tall as I. You must see that she is very bright, but you have no idea how cunning she is.

But I am always glad when this work is over for the day.

I must write you a line this morning because something very important has happened.

This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water."

Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straightening out the "mug-milk" difficulty.

When we first played this game two or three days ago, she showed no ingenuity at all in finding the object.

This morning I hid a cracker.

This morning she used the conjunction AND for the first time.

This gratifies the child's love of approbation and keeps up her interest in things.

This is the basis of real intercourse.

It is a rare privilege to watch the birth, growth, and first feeble struggles of a living mind; this privilege is mine; and moreover, it is given me to rouse and guide this bright intelligence.

I know that the education of this child will be the distinguishing event of my life, if I have the brains and perseverance to accomplish it.

It would astonish you to see how many words she learns in an hour in this pleasant manner.

I shall write freely to you and tell you everything, on one condition: It is this: you must promise never to show my letters to any one.

She is much interested in some little chickens that are pecking their way into the world this morning.

It gives her something to do, and keeps her quiet, which I think is desirable while this enervating weather lasts.

This suggestion didn't please her, however; for she replied, "No. Nancy is very sick."

She will be seven years old the twenty-seventh of this month.

Above this line the head rises one and one-fourth inches.

She kept this up for nearly an hour.

There was a great rumpus downstairs this morning.

I had hoped this would never happen again.

Helen resisted, and Viney tried to force it out of her hand, and I suspect that she slapped the child, or did something which caused this unusual outburst of temper.

I hadn't used this expression.

It was no doubt because of this ignorance that I rushed in where more experienced angels fear to tread.

There isn't a living soul in this part of the world to whom I can go for advice in this, or indeed, in any other educational difficulty.

But in this case I don't think I made a mistake.

Helen had a letter this morning from her uncle, Doctor Keller.

This was too much for Helen.

This morning I happened to say, "Helen will go upstairs."

This is another great forward step.

You have probably read, ere this, Helen's second letter to the little girls.

This is the effect of putting it all in a summary.

This lesson was followed by one on words indicative of place-relations.

In connection with this lesson she learned the names of the members of the family and the word IS.

About this time I sent a list of the words she knew to Mr. Anagnos, and he very kindly had them printed for her.

She learned it gladly when she discovered that she could herself read what she had written; and this still affords her constant pleasure.

This morning she asked me the meaning of "carpenter," and the question furnished the text for the day's lesson.

I wanted her to write to her Uncle Frank this morning, but she objected.

It is always: "Oh, Miss Sullivan, please come and tell us what Helen means," or "Miss Sullivan, won't you please explain this to Helen?

I said, "Very well, we will go shopping this afternoon."

I had Helen begin a journal March 1st.[Most of this journal was lost.

This is what Helen wrote Sunday:

Captain Keller said at breakfast this morning that he wished I would take Helen to church.

Do you realize that this is the last letter I shall write to you for a long, long time?

This extract from one of Miss Sullivan's letters is added because it contains interesting casual opinions stimulated by observing the methods of others.

It is impossible for any one with whom Helen is conversing to be particularly happy or sad, and withhold the knowledge of this fact from her.

She responds quickly to the gentle pressure of affection, the pat of approval, the jerk of impatience, the firm motion of command, and to the many other variations of the almost infinite language of the feelings; and she has become so expert in interpreting this unconscious language of the emotions that she is often able to divine our very thoughts.

In my account of Helen last year, I mentioned several instances where she seemed to have called into use an inexplicable mental faculty; but it now seems to me, after carefully considering the matter, that this power may be explained by her perfect familiarity with the muscular variations of those with whom she comes into contact, caused by their emotions.

This time her countenance changed whenever she was spoken to, but there was not such a decided lighting up of the features as when I had held her hand.

This was the first time that she had heard the word.

This was true, although we were at a loss to understand how she guessed it.

In this way, she learns countless new expressions without any apparent effort.

This is especially true of her earlier lessons, when her knowledge of language was so slight as to make explanation impossible.

This morning teacher and I sat by the window and we saw a little boy walking on the sidewalk.

From Miss Sullivan's part of this report I give her most important comments and such biographical matter as does not appear elsewhere in the present volume.

At this point Helen pressed my hand to stop me.

This morning Helen was reading for the first time Bryant's poem, "Oh, mother of a mighty race!"

But this advantage involves a corresponding disadvantage, the danger of unduly severe mental application.

After a time I became discouraged, and told her I was afraid she could not make it stand, but that I would build it for her; but she did not approve of this plan.

Whenever any one asks me if she will understand this or that word I always reply: Never mind whether she understands each separate word of a sentence or not.

Whenever she meets any one who is familiar with this system, she is delighted to use it in conversation.

At this moment another thought seemed to flash through her mind, and she added, "But Mr. Anagnos did not speak to my soul."

"But," said Helen, quickly, "I think God could make some more worlds as well as He made this one."

Then why did He let little sister fall this morning, and hurt her head so badly?

And indeed, this is true of the language of all children.

And this is Miss Sullivan's great discovery.

She got the language from the language itself, and this is, next to hearing the language spoken, the way for any one to get a foreign tongue, more vital and, in the end, easier than our schoolroom method of beginning with the grammar.

And this does not mean that Miss Keller is unduly dependent on her teacher.

I know that this idea will be vigorously combated by those who conduct schools for the deaf.

This meant some mental development.

Mrs. Keller writes me that before her illness Helen made signs for everything, and her mother thought this habit the cause of her slowness in learning to speak.

This is like the effect of the slow dwelling on long words, not quite well managed, that one notices in a child who is telling a solemn story.

This difficulty and some others may be corrected when she and Miss Sullivan have more time.

She at once resolved to learn to speak, and from that day to this she has never wavered in that resolution.

I can only say in reply, "This is due to habitual imitation and practice! practice! practice!"

Her pronunciation of this gradually became indistinct, and when I first knew her it was nothing more than a peculiar noise.

This was in imitation of her mother's crooning to the baby.

She kept one hand on the singer's mouth, while the other rested on the piano, and she stood in this position as long as any one would sing to her, and afterward she would make a continuous sound which she called singing.

If you knew all the joy I feel in being able to speak to you to-day, I think you would have some idea of the value of speech to the deaf, and you would understand why I want every little deaf child in all this great world to have an opportunity to learn to speak.

It seems very strange to me that there should be this difference of opinion; I cannot understand how any one interested in our education can fail to appreciate the satisfaction we feel in being able to express our thoughts in living words.

In this, as in all other things, Miss Sullivan has been the wise teacher.

When Dr. Bell said this he was arguing his own case.

* In this paper Miss Sullivan says: During this winter (1891-92) I went with her into the yard while a light snow was falling, and let her feel the falling flakes.

I inquired of her where she had read this; she did not remember having read it, did not seem to know that she had learned it.

It would seem that Helen had learned and treasured the memory of this expression of the poet, and this morning in the snow-storm had found its application.

This letter is published in the Perkins Institution Report (1891), p. 204.

She closes this letter with, "I must go to bed, for Morpheus has touched my eyelids with his golden wand."

This is shown in a little story she wrote in October last at the home of her parents in Tuscumbia, which she called "Autumn Leaves."

As we had never seen or heard of any such story as this before, we inquired of her where she read it; she replied, "I did not read it; it is my story for Mr. Anagnos's birthday."

This story, "Frost Fairies," appeared in a book written by Miss Margaret T. Canby, entitled "Birdie and his Fairy Friends."

As I had never read this story, or even heard of the book, I inquired of Helen if she knew anything about the matter, and found she did not.

Careful examination was made of the books in raised print in the library of the Perkins Institution to learn if any extracts from this volume could be found there; but nothing was discovered.

This became a difficult task, as her publishers in Philadelphia had retired from business many years ago; however, it was eventually discovered that her residence is at Wilmington, Delaware, and copies of the second edition of the book, 1889, were obtained from her.

I will tell you how King Frost first thought of this kind work, for it is a strange story.

Still, for awhile, the frost fairies did not notice this strange occurrence, for they were down on the grass, so far below the tree-tops that the wonderful shower of treasure was a long time in reaching them; but at last one of them said, Hark!

Nothing could be more beautiful than the architecture of this ice-palace.

But, children, you must make King Frost a visit the very first opportunity you have, and see for yourselves this wonderful palace.

When the fairies heard this, they were greatly relieved and came forth from their hiding-places, confessed their fault, and asked their master's forgiveness.

Another fact is of great significance in this connection.

Now Helen, in her letter of February, 1890 (quoted above), alludes to this story of Miss Canby's as a dream "WHICH I HAD A LONG TIME AGO WHEN I WAS A VERY LITTLE CHILD."

This morning I took a bath, and when teacher came upstairs to comb my hair she told me some very sad news which made me unhappy all day.

But the child has no recollection whatever of this fact.

This may explain the reason why Helen claims persistently that "The Frost King" is her own story.

In this case Helen Keller held almost intact in her mind, unmixed with other ideas, the words of a story which at the time it was read to her she did not fully understand.

The importance of this cannot be overestimated.

The reason that we do not observe this process in ordinary children is, because we seldom observe them at all, and because they are fed from so many sources that the memories are confused and mutually destructive.

This little story calls into life all the questions of language and the philosophy of style.

This happy condition has obtained throughout her life.

I would cling to my mother's dress as she went about her household duties, and my little hands felt every object and observed every motion, and in this way I learned a great many things.

This book, her first mature experiment in writing, settles the question of her ability to write.

Her vocabulary has all the phrases that other people use, and the explanation of it, and the reasonableness of it ought to be evident by this time.

It is true, on the other hand, that in her descriptions, she is best from the point of view of art when she is faithful to her own sensations; and this is precisely true of all artists.

To be sure, I take the keenest interest in everything that concerns those who surround me; it is this very interest which makes it so difficult for me to carry on a conversation with some people who will not talk or say what they think, but I should not be sorry to find more friends ready to talk with me now and then about the wonderful things I read.

This was my first real experience in college life, and a delightful experience it was!

This is an age of workers, not of thinkers.

What secret power, I wonder, caused this blossoming miracle?

More even than this, in your wickedness you destroy the peaceful homes of your clients!

Perhaps this was a confused recollection of the story I had heard not long before about Red Riding Hood.

If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes.

This was not the light in which I hoed them.

History, Poetry, Mythology!--I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be.

This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.

To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food.

No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work.

However, in this case my pains were their own reward.

As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will still be indispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained.

Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe.

I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this--Who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee?

Of what use this measuring of me if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to bang the coat on?

I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men.

On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any country risen to the dignity of an art.

The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical.

I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the wind.

This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative.

The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live.

But, answers one, by merely paying this tax, the poor civilized man secures an abode which is a palace compared with the savage's.

As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.

But this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and suggests, beside, that probably not even the other three succeed in saving their souls, but are perchance bankrupt in a worse sense than they who fail honestly.

This is the reason he is poor; and for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by luxuries.

It certainly is fair to look at that class by whose labor the works which distinguish this generation are accomplished.

I hardly need refer now to the laborers in our Southern States who produce the staple exports of this country, and are themselves a staple production of the South.

By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world?

He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain-tops.

We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb.

The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it.

In such a neighborhood as this, boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily obtained than suitable caves, or whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or even well-tempered clay or flat stones.

I speak understandingly on this subject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically and practically.

Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time.

This he assured me was the only encumbrance.

I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and removed it to the pond-side by small cartloads, spreading the boards on the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun.

He was there to represent spectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event one with the removal of the gods of Troy.

I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature.

Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve?

This man seemed to me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his half truth to the rude occupants who really knew it better than he.

I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation themselves.

I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end.

Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.

I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road.

You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season.

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.

This never costs anything to speak of, unless you plant more than enough.

I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of the present economical and social arrangements.

Man thus not only works for the animal within him, but, for a symbol of this, he works for the animal without him.

This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and horses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but there are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county.

This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and horses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but there are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county.

It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water.

In cold weather it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves of this in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his hatching eggs.

But I did not always use this staff of life.

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them.

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it altogether, I should probably drink the less water.

Each load looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor.

Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviÃ¦: at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned?

During this fast they abstain from the gratification of every appetite and passion whatever.

As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure.

Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a thousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a small one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall separate several apartments.

But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say.

I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure also.

However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect, and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor.

If I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say rather, Set about being good.

No--in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way.

This ducking was the very thing he needed.

This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins.

We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.

This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends.

The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two years into one.

To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before.

This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments.

This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the builder.

A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being, shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important.

But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me.

This is as important as that it keeps butter cool.

They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tchingthang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again."

And when they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception.

"Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe"--and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life--I wrote this some years ago--that were worth the postage.

This is always exhilarating and sublime.

If a man should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the "Mill-dam" go to?

Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill.

To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the esoteric doctrines.

It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

There are those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can digest all sorts of this, even after the fullest dinner of meats and vegetables, for they suffer nothing to be wasted.

This sort of gingerbread is baked daily and more sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost every oven, and finds a surer market.

There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.

I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above that, but to "keep himself in practice," he being a Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English.

This is about as much as the college-bred generally do or aspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose.

We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects.

But consider how little this village does for its own culture.

In this country, the village should in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe.

I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel.

It looked as if this was the way these forms came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, and bedsteads--because they once stood in their midst.

There is no stopping to read the riot act, no firing over the heads of the mob, in this case.

This carload of torn sails is more legible and interesting now than if they should be wrought into paper and printed books.

I confess, that practically speaking, when I have learned a man's real disposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse in this state of existence.

Here is a hogshead of molasses or of brandy directed to John Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some trader among the Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his clearing, and now perchance stands over his bulkhead and thinks of the last arrivals on the coast, how they may affect the price for him, telling his customers this moment, as he has told them twenty times before this morning, that he expects some by the next train of prime quality.

At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept.

The note of this once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and if they could be naturalized without being domesticated, it would soon become the most famous sound in our woods, surpassing the clangor of the goose and the hooting of the owl; and then imagine the cackling of the hens to fill the pauses when their lords' clarions rested!

No wonder that man added this bird to his tame stock--to say nothing of the eggs and drumsticks.

This foreign bird's note is celebrated by the poets of all countries along with the notes of their native songsters.

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.

I am tempted to reply to such--This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space.

This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question.

This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes.

We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war.

This meal only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting.

Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect.

In this respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance from town.

He has a great bundle of white oak bark under his arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning.

Did this country afford any beverage beside water?

I asked him once, when I had not seen him for many months, if he had got a new idea this summer.

What was the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean labor, I knew not.

My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the most part is lean and effete.

When I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston to this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to the pond.

This was one field not in Mr. Coleman's report.

But this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he.

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day.

This was one of the great days; though the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and I saw no difference in it.

"The earth," he adds elsewhere, "especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement."

This is the result of my experience in raising beans: Plant the common small white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh round and unmixed seed.

But above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss by this means.

This broad field which I have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to it, which water and make it green.

I hardly ever failed, when I rambled through the village, to see a row of such worthies, either sitting on a ladder sunning themselves, with their bodies inclined forward and their eyes glancing along the line this way and that, from time to time, with a voluptuous expression, or else leaning against a barn with their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up.

In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round--for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.

Through this, whistling a tune, we took our way to the haunts of men again.

This is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being warmed by the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the still frozen middle.

Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some trace of their footsteps.

This is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand.

This same summer the pond has begun to fall again.

By this fluctuation the pond asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession.

The specific name reticulatus would not apply to this; it should be guttatus rather.

Indeed, they sometimes dive below this line, as it were by mistake, and are undeceived.

From a hilltop you can see a fish leap in almost any part; for not a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake.

It is wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is advertised--this piscine murder will out--and from my distant perch I distinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods in diameter.

It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh;--a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun's hazy brush--this the light dust-cloth--which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.

Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me.

He rounded this water with his hand, deepened and clarified it in his thought, and in his will bequeathed it to Concord.

The engineer does not forget at night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this vision of serenity and purity once at least during the day.

It is by this time mere vegetable mould and undistinguishable pond shore, through which rushes and flags have pushed up.

This is my lake country.

It was even supposed by some that the pond had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest that formerly stood there.

In the spring of '49 I talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who told me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years before.

This was probably the same phenomenon to which I have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also at other times, and even by moonlight.

Poor John Field!--I trust he does not read this, unless he will improve by it--thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this primitive new country--to catch perch with shiners.

Perhaps I have owed to this employment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest acquaintance with Nature.

The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.

This is the tidbit which tempts his insectivorous fate.

Yet perhaps this may be done.

Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women.

This certainly suggests what change is to be made.

The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.

In the music of the harp which trembles round the world it is the insisting on this which thrills us.

This creature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity.

We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is.

A voice said to him--Why do you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you?

Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these.--But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither?

And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devil's door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day!

Methinks I was nearly in this frame of mind; the world lay about at this angle.

If I should soon bring this meditation to an end, would another so sweet occasion be likely to offer?

Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice?

So perfect is this instinct, that once, when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward.

I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was warmest.

This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden.

Some station themselves on this side of the pond, some on that, for the poor bird cannot be omnipresent; if he dive here he must come up there.

When I went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove within a few rods.

He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen the interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before.

How surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools!

Though the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear him.

The mortar on them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing harder; but this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat whether they are true or not.

This was toward the end of summer.

I brought over some whiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the opposite shore of the pond in a boat, a sort of conveyance which would have tempted me to go much farther if necessary.

This I hauled up partly on the shore.

I amused myself one winter day with sliding this piecemeal across the pond, nearly half a mile, skating behind with one end of a log fifteen feet long on my shoulder, and the other on the ice; or I tied several logs together with a birch withe, and then, with a longer birch or alder which had a hook at the end, dragged them across.

Michaux, more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood for fuel in New York and Philadelphia "nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of the best wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually requires more than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to the distance of three hundred miles by cultivated plains."

In this town the price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how much higher it is to be this year than it was the last.

It is interesting to remember how much of this food for fire is still concealed in the bowels of the earth.

But the most luxuriously housed has little to boast of in this respect, nor need we trouble ourselves to speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed.

In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines would scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who were compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it with fear, and often ran a good part of the distance.

I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook.

It chanced that I walked that way across the fields the following night, about the same hour, and hearing a low moaning at this spot, I drew near in the dark, and discovered the only survivor of the family that I know, the heir of both its virtues and its vices, who alone was interested in this burning, lying on his stomach and looking over the cellar wall at the still smouldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, as is his wont.

But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just this, that "Cato and Brister pulled wool"; which is about as edifying as the history of more famous schools of philosophy.

But this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail while Concord keeps its ground?

I often performed this duty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows, but did not see the man approaching from the town.

I took this course when I went to lecture in Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road and passing no house between my own hut and the lecture room.

What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me?

Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius) waked me in the dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of the woods for this purpose.

Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust, for this brave bird is not to be scared by winter.

The hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who used to hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges, and exchange their skins for rum in Concord village; who told him, even, that he had seen a moose there.

One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged.

The night veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether.

It is surprising that they are caught here--that in this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the rattling teams and chaises and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great gold and emerald fish swims.

I have visited two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk in this neighborhood.

This is a remarkable depth for so small an area; yet not an inch of it can be spared by the imagination.

I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol.

They are not like cups between the hills; for this one, which is so unusually deep for its area, appears in a vertical section through its centre not deeper than a shallow plate.

No doubt many a smiling valley with its stretching cornfields occupies exactly such a "horrid chasm," from which the waters have receded, though it requires the insight and the far sight of the geologist to convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of this fact.

Is not this the rule also for the height of mountains, regarded as the opposite of valleys?

In order to see how nearly I could guess, with this experience, at the deepest point in a pond, by observing the outlines of a surface and the character of its shores alone, I made a plan of White Pond, which contains about forty-one acres, and, like this, has no island in it, nor any visible inlet or outlet; and as the line of greatest breadth fell very near the line of least breadth, where two opposite capes approached each other and two opposite bays receded, I ventured to mark a point a short distance from the latter line, but still on the line of greatest length, as the deepest.

The deepest part was found to be within one hundred feet of this, still farther in the direction to which I had inclined, and was only one foot deeper, namely, sixty feet.

At the advent of each individual into this life, may we not suppose that such a bar has risen to the surface somewhere?

It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.

This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of a ship to let the water out.

It may be that he lays up no treasures in this world which will cool his summer drink in the next.

This heap, made in the winter of '46-7 and estimated to contain ten thousand tons, was finally covered with hay and boards; and though it was unroofed the following July, and a part of it carried off, the rest remaining exposed to the sun, it stood over that summer and the next winter, and was not quite melted till September, 1848.

So the hollows about this pond will, sometimes, in the winter, be filled with a greenish water somewhat like its own, but the next day will have frozen blue.

It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.

This pond has no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.

This pond has no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.

This difference of three and a half degrees between the temperature of the deep water and the shallow in the latter pond, and the fact that a great proportion of it is comparatively shallow, show why it should break up so much sooner than Walden.

The ice in the shallowest part was at this time several inches thinner than in the middle.

The whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, is sometimes overlaid with a mass of this kind of foliage, or sandy rupture, for a quarter of a mile on one or both sides, the produce of one spring day.

What makes this sand foliage remarkable is its springing into existence thus suddenly.

I feel as if I were nearer to the vitals of the globe, for this sandy overflow is something such a foliaceous mass as the vitals of the animal body.

The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it.

Thus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature.

The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf.

What Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last?

This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring.

This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring.

You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into.

It is almost identical with that, for in the growing days of June, when the rills are dry, the grass-blades are their channels, and from year to year the herds drink at this perennial green stream, and the mower draws from it betimes their winter supply.

It is glorious to behold this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun, the bare face of the pond full of glee and youth, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within it, and of the sands on its shore.

But this spring it broke up more steadily, as I have said.

This at least is not the Turdus migratorius.

In almost all climes the tortoise and the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and birds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom, and winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and preserve the equilibrium of nature.

Men seeing the nature of this man like that of the brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of reason.

This sight reminded me of falconry and what nobleness and poetry are associated with that sport.

Beside this I got a rare mess of golden and silver and bright cupreous fishes, which looked like a string of jewels.

This is the "sulphur showers" we hear of.

If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless.

Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would find?

England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India.

This was manly, as the world goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

"They pretend," as I hear, "that the verses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas"; but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one interpretation.

I do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity, but I should be proud if no more fatal fault were found with my pages on this score than was found with the Walden ice.

This alone wears well.

But presently the traveller's horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, "I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom."

This generation inclines a little to congratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in Boston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent, it speaks of its progress in art and science and literature with satisfaction.

It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats.

Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest.

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day?

What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself.

This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient.

This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.

How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country?

Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them.

I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.

Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.

I see this blood flowing now.

This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably in outward respects.

This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it.

I do not hear of men being forced to have this way or that by masses of men.

The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the town.

Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published.

This is the whole history of "My Prisons."

This, then, is my position at present.

But I think, again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind.

It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world.

I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality.

But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist--I really believe he is Antichrist--I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call yourself!

Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and carrying her burden so lightly.

This stout young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow.

And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag.

The latter spared him, and this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.

This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives me of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you.

In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna Pavlovna: Educate this bear for me!

Prince Vasili knew this, and having once realized that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence.

This last consideration moved him.

This is what I expected from you--I knew your kindness!

"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?" asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of the nations?

"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run over," Anna Pavlovna continued.

He explained this to her with as much gravity as if she had asked him to do it.

But won't you come to this other table? repeated Anna Pavlovna.

The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested.

Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this reinforcement.

It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.

You are the first and only one to whom I mention this, because I like you.

"You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is the whole story of life.

And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew's lack of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he himself was particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a sign of strength.

It suits you so badly--all this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!

Pierre often indulged in reflections of this sort, nullifying all his decisions and intentions.

This was Dolokhov, an officer of the Semenov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who was living with Anatole.

Fifty imperials... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this spot" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window) "and without holding on to anything.

The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to accept this challenge or not.

I say, this is folly!

He'll be killed, said this more sensible man.

Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand to balance himself.

Suddenly Dolokhov made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously; this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the sloping ledge.

He is in such bad health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill him!

And to think it is Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's son who amuses himself in this sensible manner!

This is all that his foreign education has done for him!

"Why do you say this young man is so rich?" asked the countess, turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention.

He has lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.

The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it necessary to take some part in it.

Having said this he glanced at Natasha.

This Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he rose from an ensign and became Emperor.

Especially just at this age, so dangerous both for girls and boys.

At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the flower tubs and hid there.

You are a Madame de Genlis and nothing more" (this nickname, bestowed on Vera by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), "and your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people!

This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.

This is my son, she added, indicating Boris.

He is his godson, she added, her tone suggesting that this fact ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.

"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise..." said the princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.

People are always disturbing him, answered Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.

Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say something disconcerting to himself.

Well, this is strange!

As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up his mind that they would be friends.

"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential young man who had entered.

But I am in great need of this sum.

This is for Boris from me, for his outfit.

This was an old bachelor, Shinshin, a cousin of the countess', a man with "a sharp tongue" as they said in Moscow society.

This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semenov regiment with whom Boris was to travel to join the army, and about whom Natasha had teased her elder sister Vera, speaking of Berg as her "intended."

Berg evidently enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others, too, might have their own interests.

The latter understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables.

All were silent, expectant of what was to follow, for this was clearly only a prelude.

Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the elders.

Natasha, who was treated as though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the same time felt shy.

At nighttime in the moon's fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free, To feel that in this world there's one Who still is thinking but of thee!

This was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.

In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.

It was plain that this "well?" referred to much that they both understood without naming.

This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow and devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long.

"And this is gratitude--this is recognition for those who have sacrificed everything for his sake!" she cried.

Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who...

In this world one has to be cunning and cruel.

"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?" asked Anna Mikhaylovna of one of them.

Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikhaylovna who was already opening a door.

This door led into a back anteroom.

Anna Mikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as if to say that this was no more than she had expected.

This young man is the count's son, she added more softly.

Having said this she went up to the doctor.

"Dear doctor," said she, "this young man is the count's son.

Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its walls hung round with Persian carpets.

Pierre paid no more attention to this occurrence than to the rest of what went on, having made up his mind once for all that what he saw happening around him that evening was in some way essential.

But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon nothing.

Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes they must look somewhere, or it meant too much.

This lasted about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an hour.

Pierre well remembered this small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little tables.

Now this same room was dimly lighted by two candles.

Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a short interval followed her.

"But, my dear princess," answered Anna Mikhaylovna blandly but impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other from passing, "won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment when he needs repose?

"I don't even know what is in this paper," said the younger of the two ladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she held in her hand.

All I know is that his real will is in his writing table, and this is a paper he has forgotten....

"Oh!" said he with reproach and surprise, "this is absurd!

At this moment that terrible door burst noisily open and banged against the wall.

Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you.

I know you well enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes duties on you, and you must be a man.

Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in silence at Princess Anna Mikhaylovna.

At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski's estate, the arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but this expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old prince's household.

"Read this if you like, Father," said the princess, blushing still more and holding out the letter.

"This won't do, Princess; it won't do," said he, when Princess Mary, having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson, was about to leave: "Mathematics are most important, madam!

To say nothing of my brothers, this war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart.

This young man, of whom I spoke to you last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly, he is so frank and has so much heart.

This is the reply she wrote, also in French:

Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries they contain; for how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the terrible and holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh which forms an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal?

In regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must conform.

Prince Andrew apparently knew this as well as Tikhon; he looked at his watch as if to ascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at home last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he turned to his wife.

The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes and her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as merrily and prettily as ever.

"Why, this is a palace!" she said to her husband, looking around with the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball.

You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this he'll soon have us, too, for his subjects!

Well, go on," he continued, returning to his hobby; "tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte by this new science you call 'strategy.'"

The old prince did not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three times unexpectedly interrupted.

This meant that Tikhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.

Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse than this one.

He listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and political events.

Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his skill? he concluded.

Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.

But even in this I can see lately a shade of improvement.

Think as you please, but do this for my sake!

Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will never take it off.

Why do you say all this to me?

Know this, Masha: I can't reproach, have not reproached, and never shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself with anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever circumstances I may be placed.

But why this is so I don't know...

As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed her forehead.

Put this on the seat and this to the right.

This very sentence about Countess Zubova and this same laugh Prince Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some five times.

This very sentence about Countess Zubova and this same laugh Prince Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some five times.

Give this letter to Michael Ilarionovich. * I have written that he should make use of you in proper places and not keep you long as an adjutant: a bad position!

"Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me, your old father..." he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous voice suddenly shrieked: "but if I hear that you have not behaved like a son of Nicholas Bolkonski, I shall be ashamed!"

And this "Well!" sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying,: "Now go through your performance."

A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov the day before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, not considering this junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view, to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops arrived from Russia.

With this object he intended to meet the regiment; so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander- in-chief would be.

On hearing this the regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.

This! he shouted and stood still.

What is this? shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish cloth, which contrasted with the others.

This was Prince Bolkonski.

His suite, not having expected this, involuntarily came closer to him.

The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did not answer.

You told me to remind you of the officer Dolokhov, reduced to the ranks in this regiment.

"This is Dolokhov," said Prince Andrew.

I hope this will be a lesson to you.

And believe me on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful general--of whom Austria has so many--and to lay down all this heavy responsibility.

Kutuzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.

Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these," he said, handing him several papers, "make a neat memorandum in French out of all this, showing all the news we have had of the movements of the Austrian army, and then give it to his excellency."

Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they gazed at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.

*(2) Only a hobbledehoy could amuse himself in this way, he added in Russian--but pronouncing the word with a French accent--having noticed that Zherkov could still hear him.

On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news of Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was proceeding as usual.

"I saw you riding this morning..." he added.

"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin.

I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found.

Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money, take it...

He may keep me on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then...

"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other officers," continued the staff captain, "and Bogdanich" (the colonel was called Bogdanich) "shuts you up."

"I did not expect this of you," said the staff captain seriously and severely.

And all this is not right, it's not right!

But the devil knows what this is.

Beside the bridge Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order, and having done this he rode back.

"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached.

Rostov did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on, trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled, and fell on his hands.

Another instant and I shall never again see the sun, this water, that gorge!...

But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like a target.

And this was true.

In this action for the first time trophies were taken: banners, cannon, and two enemy generals.

As a mark of the commander-in-chief's special favor he was sent with the news of this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was threatened by the French) but at Brunn.

Then he began to imagine that the Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away.

"Take this and deliver it," said he to his adjutant, handing him the papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.

But this destruction seems to have been done on purpose to vex us.

"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued, "and showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement...

Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending us--doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us.

"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said Prince Andrew.

This is what I think.

"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkonski is my guest in this house and in Brunn itself.

If we were in Vienna it would be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I beg you all to help me.

"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane interests," said Bilibin.

Confess that this is delightful, said he.

This affair of the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna....

But it will please our sovereign the Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!' 'Yes, let's!' say the others.

And off they go and take the bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication.

This news grieved him and yet he was pleased.

"Stop this jesting," he said.

But what is best of all," he went on, his excitement subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, "is that the sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes stayed his hand.

Come, you must own that this affair of the Thabor Bridge is delightful!

Kindly let this cart pass.

This expression evidently pleased him.

"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's this disorder," he muttered.

"This is a mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking as he went up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.

This was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski's usually laughing countenance.

Kutuzov chose this latter course.

Bagration was to make this march without resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible.

To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and with this object offered a three days' truce on condition that both armies should remain in position without moving.

Officers are nothing when they have no powers; this one had none....

Bonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to Murat.

This morning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again.

"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in the reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than once.

* "This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince."

"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew, wishing to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please don't trouble yourself further."

All their faces were as serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in which at least half of them would be left on the field.

It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery.

If they attack our center we, having the center battery on this high ground, shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by echelons.

Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and feeling at that moment.

Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that this was exactly what he had desired and expected.

Prince Andrew was struck by the changed expression on Prince Bagration's face at this moment.

All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French column advancing against them and winding down over the uneven ground.

All were conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.

The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this irresolution communicated itself to the men.

Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him, continue their flight?

I beg you will remember this, your excellency!

The French columns that had advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began firing them at Tushin's battery.

"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.

This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers who had sheltered in the village houses.

The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened.

And when will all this end? thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows before him.

That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the harsh voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so agonizingly, incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always dragging it in one direction.

But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally make his request.

Touched that this statuesque princess could so change, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without knowing what for.

Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw this bone--a bill for thirty thousand rubles--to the poor princess that it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the inlaid portfolio.

Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening.

How and when this would be he did not know, he did not even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why, that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.

He had merely understood that the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good looking," he had understood that this woman might belong to him.

Why did this thought never occur to me before? and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this marriage.

But at the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.

He had arranged this for himself so as to visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that rich old man.

"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not behaving very well in this matter.

"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not behaving very well in this matter.

He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really possessed.

This rescript began with the words: "Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me," etc.

"And what nonsense all this is that I am saying!" thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers.

And this human feeling dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter.

Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and embarrassed him.

Then it would suddenly seem to him that it was not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was why they all looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration he would expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune.

If I hadn't this headache I'd have stayed longer.

"This happiness is not for you," some inner voice whispered to him.

This happiness is for those who have not in them what there is in you.

The prince reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt for her.

Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this morning?

All this might, he thought, turn out very well and amusingly.

"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty," said Lise, looking sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance.

But this one is too light, it's not becoming!

It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well.

No, Mary, really this dress does not suit you.

Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual, but it was too late.

This expression in Princess Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to be shaken in her determination.

The more she tried to hide this feeling from others and even from herself, the stronger it grew.

It was evident that he could be silent in this way for a very long time.

"If anyone finds this silence inconvenient, let him talk, but I don't want to," he seemed to say.

Perhaps he did not really think this when he met women--even probably he did not, for in general he thought very little--but his looks and manner gave that impression.

The princess felt this, and as if wishing to show him that she did not even dare expect to interest him, she turned to his father.

You have done up your hair in this new way for the visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent.

Mademoiselle Bourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this story to him, her seducer.

"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind--yes, kind, that is the chief thing," thought Princess Mary; and fear, which she had seldom experienced, came upon her.

And this someone was he--the devil--and he was also this man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.

The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to be parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this thought, he called Tikhon and began to undress.

Princess Mary well knew this painstaking expression of her father's.

Remember this, Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to choose.

My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never forget.

But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching this heart, so kind and generous?

When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor.

This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha looked at her reproachfully.

How strange, how extraordinary, how joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who had first learned to say "pear" and then "granny," that this son should now be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly warrior doing some kind of man's work of his own, without help or guidance.

As twenty years before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this letter, he now was.

But notwithstanding this, Boris embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and kissed him three times.

This letter would be of great use to you.

This pleased Rostov and he began talking about it, and as he went on became more and more animated.

Rostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a mere stranger.

Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was repeated by others from various sides and all became silent.

This was the Emperors' suites.

He longed to show that love in some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry.

"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then even this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything else the Tsar did.

"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire this instant!" thought Rostov.

In spite of this, or rather because of it, next day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and, entering the house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonski.

More than ever was Boris resolved to serve in future not according to the written code, but under this unwritten law.

Only let me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your disposal.

But this is what we'll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you may not know it, the fact is that now Kutuzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing.

Under cover of obtaining help of this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and which attracted him.

This combination of Austrian precision with Russian valor--what more could be wished for?

But I have come to you, Prince, as a petitioner on behalf of this young man.

You know I should be very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young man.

This short man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate friend and stared at Prince Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and evidently expecting him to bow or to step out of his way.

He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the day he had lost.

The cause of this indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by the sight of the killed and wounded.

This officer was Savary.

But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached Kutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns.

Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.

Prince Andrew came in to inform the commander-in-chief of this and, availing himself of permission previously given him by Kutuzov to be present at the council, he remained in the room.

For this object it is necessary that...

Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan perfectly worthless.

And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant, most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he first loved her.

"Well then," Prince Andrew answered himself, "I don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and can't, but if I want this--want glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but that and live only for that.

All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this mist!

I'll ask leave to go to the front, this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor.

On this knoll there was a white patch that Rostov could not at all make out: was it a glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or some white houses?

I saw them this evening on that knoll; if they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....

They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your excellency.

They are the same battalions you broke at Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place.

In this way the action began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into the valley.

The whole French army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could distinguish a mounted man from one on foot.

When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were aglow with dazzling light--as if he had only awaited this to begin the action--he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin.

He was firmly convinced that this was the day of his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola.

Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov was heard the sound of regiments saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended line of the advancing Russian columns.

This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.

"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the distance, but down the hill before him.

And at this as if at a command, everyone began to run.

After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg; several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the flag let it fall from his hands.

This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that amazed the French themselves.

"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a soldier shouted to him.

The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots.

"What would she feel," thought he, "if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon aimed at me?"

"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!" thought Rostov.

"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked under him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun.

"And I did not know this suffering either," he thought.

Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was Napoleon who said it.

Lift this young man up and carry him to the dressing station.

Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.

During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look about him and even speak.

They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor Alexander's Guards, said the first one, indicating a Russian officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.

How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave!

Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at this moment of happy, rapturous excitement.

This escapade made everybody feel confused.

"Is this your saber?" he shouted.

"Is this your saber?" asked Petya.

I burned this to prove my love for her.

Vera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sonya, Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who--dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match-- blushed like a girl.

This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual places and met in certain habitual groups.

Bagration was embarrassed, not wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first.

This is what I like!

It's even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel, this murder?

"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I did not tell you the whole truth.

So this is what I was proud of!

But feeling this to be senseless and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her.

Well, what's this now?

Come now, what was this duel about?

What does this duel prove?

He knew that he must do something to put an end to this suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.

It was as if joy--a supreme joy apart from the joys and sorrows of this world--overflowed the great grief within her.

"No it can't be, that would be too extraordinary," and at the very moment she thought this, the face and figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which covered with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the candle.

And now--this duel!

I don't know how to put it... with this one everything is calculated, and I don't like that.

It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.

Orders were given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army, and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia.

Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late, something seemed to give way within him at this news.

This was the first time since his return that they had talked alone and about their love.

"This is not at all the thing," he said.

"What does this mean?" she brought out.

On the previous Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and though he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told Nicholas that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him to be more economical this time.

Now only twelve hundred rubles was left of that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his word.

With a sinking heart he watched Dolokhov's hands and thought, "Now then, make haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and drive home to supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will certainly never touch a card again."

And why is he doing this to me?

He knows of course what this loss means to me.

Such a little while ago I came to this table with the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma's name day and then going home.

When did that end and when did this new, terrible state of things begin?

Come now, just this one more little card!

I only want to see whether you will let me win this ten, or beat it.

"Oh, it's terrible to feel oneself so in this man's power," thought Rostov.

He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it all, and felt that Dolokhov knew that he could save him from all this shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a mouse.

"My cousin has nothing to do with this and it's not necessary to mention her!" he exclaimed fiercely.

Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls me still?

What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?

Only they generally said this some time after she had finished singing.

"What is this?" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely opened eyes.

"Oh, this senseless life of ours!" thought Nicholas.

All this misery, and money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor--it's all nonsense... but this is real....

And this something was apart from everything else in the world and above everything in the world.

I shall speak to him myself, said the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little Natasha as grown up.

At this instant, they heard the quick rustle of the countess' dress.

In that case you would not have obliged me to give this refusal.

Is this good or bad?

"I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this gentleman," said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another traveler, also detained for lack of horses.

This active old servant was unpacking the traveler's canteen and preparing tea.

Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the need, even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this stranger.

The stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but in spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were irresistibly attractive to Pierre.

Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.

And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that God has implanted in our souls.

But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to, could disclose it to me.

Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to.

Hand this to Count Willarski (he took out his notebook and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four).

A skull, a coffin, the Gospel--it seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more.

This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from below.

"Good!" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this answer.

"Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order," he said, "and if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with profit.

But since this mystery is of such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be prepared by long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope to attain it quickly.

Think this over and I will come to you again.

Pierre repeated, and a mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind.

Of the three objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind, especially appealed to Pierre.

"In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death," the Rhetor said, "to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and peace."

This chamber with what you see therein should already have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words could do.

Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a slipper for his left foot.

The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this answer.

Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not the Rhetor but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his voice.

On seeing this, Pierre moved forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce it.

This gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom you select to be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry.

This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and so on.

He was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasili suddenly entered the room.

This expression suggested that she had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly and that her husband was a cross laid upon her by God.

I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that has happened.

In consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all his relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were completely altered.

"You absolutely must come and see me," she said in a tone that implied that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was absolutely necessary.

Bending forward in his armchair he said: "Le Roi de Prusse!" and having said this laughed.

But what was still stranger, though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel's face, Prince Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead wife: "Ah, why have you done this to me?"

The old man, roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign, while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.

"Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things off-- and this is what comes of it!" said Prince Andrew in an exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.

Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news--if it's not false.

All this is absolutely true.

This is the first act.

This is the battle of Pultusk, which is considered a great victory but in my opinion was nothing of the kind.

During this interregnum we begin a very original and interesting series of maneuvers.

So energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhowden.

The Emperor proposes to give all commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.

Prince Andrew longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless little creature, but dared not do so.

"Yes, this is the one thing left me now," he said with a sigh.

But he felt that this did not forward matters at all.

This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do for these simple, kindly people.

However, this is not at all interesting.

And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness in life."

Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time.

Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have a nook of one's own in which to be quiet.

And now there's this recruiting.

Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now there's this recruiting.

Why, for this reason!

But it is a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly.

On earth, here on this earth" (Pierre pointed to the fields), "there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children of earth are--eternally--children of the whole universe.

I feel that I cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall always exist and always have existed.

I feel that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth.

We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole, said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.

It vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life, but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop existed within him.

This is the one matter in which she disobeys him.

* "You must know that this is a woman."

He needs activity, and this quiet regular life is very bad for him.

Another says clever things and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet stirs an old fellow up.

The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre's account.

Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental life, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to rest.

That spring a new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs, and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root.

Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just as usual.

On each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches.

From the regimental commander's, Denisov rode straight to the staff with a sincere desire to act on this advice.

Take this and this!' and I hit him so pat, stwaight on his snout...

This is a pesthouse, sir.

Some five of us doctors have died in this place....

It was a little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it originated.

Rostov glanced round, looking for someone who would put this man back in his place and bring him water.

"Why, this one seems..." he began, turning to the assistant.

How are you, how are you? he called out, still in the same voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under this habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed itself in the expression of Denisov's face and the intonations of his voice.

His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostov.

This is what I say: 'If I had wobbed the Tweasuwy...'

"The auditor wrote out a petition for you," continued Tushin, "and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it.

He noted this down that same evening, among other facts he felt to be of historic importance.

Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov.

Each time this happened Rostov felt uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.

This way, to the officer on duty" (he was shown the door leading downstairs), "only it won't be accepted."

On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov grew frightened at what he was doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away, but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostov entered.

This man was speaking to someone in the adjoining room.

It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor's special favor during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in which Rostov was serving.

This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into Alexander's eyes.

He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked, and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.

On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became free agricultural laborers--this being one of the first examples of the kind in Russia.

Only the dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak, refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or the sunshine.

"Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say.

During this journey he, as it were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion, restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything anew--but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not disturbing himself or desiring anything.

This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, and in the middle of May Prince Andrew went to visit him.

I feel like sitting down on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight, as tight as possible, and flying away!

"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed," thought Prince Andrew.

On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn and found all sorts of reasons for this decision.

This officer's audience lasted a long time.

After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on duty said in a whisper, "To the right, at the window."

And this movement of reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his consciousness.

Mon cher, even in this case you can't do without Michael Mikhaylovich Speranski.

He has promised to come this evening.

This was Speranski, Secretary of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and talked with Napoleon.

He did not say that the Emperor had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.

This flattered Prince Andrew.

Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely reestablishes natural justice.

To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous man.

This first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in Prince Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.

This was Speranski's cold, mirrorlike look, which did not allow one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Prince Andrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of those who possess power.

This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated Prince Andrew, he knew not why.

(This last resource was one he very frequently employed.)

And it was just this peculiarity of Speranski's mind that particularly attracted Prince Andrew.

Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading position among the Petersburg Freemasons.

Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexeevich himself, but he did not share their interests.

This aim was that of Christianity itself.

This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in the lodge.

Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then was, this was not even unpleasant to him.

This is what he noted in his diary:

Only to this aim can we always strive independently of circumstances.

On this ground Joseph Alexeevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the depth of my soul I agreed with him.

In this group Helene, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her husband, took a very prominent place.

This shade of deference also disturbed Pierre.

But a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place all this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him and causing him many spiritual doubts and joys.

Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during that time:

After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the following was written:

The cause of this is my egotism.

It seemed as if I chattered incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him.

Abashed by this question, I replied that sloth was my chief temptation.

To this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one's embraces and gave me to understand that that was my duty.

And I seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a representation of the Song of Songs.

The old count felt this most.

The count was so disconcerted by this long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first reply that came into his head.

This expression on his face pleased Natasha.

This Natasha noticed at once.

All this time Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her brows.

This gaze disturbed and confused Boris more and more.

She was finishing her last prayer: "Can it be that this couch will be my grave?"

This couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than the one below.

As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter.

But this is what I'll do, Natasha, I'll have a talk with Boris.

"There is everything, everything in her," continued this man.

Turning her mother's head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her skirt.

"Mamma, your cap, more to this side," said Natasha.

And this was the very attitude that became her best.

She realized that those noticing her liked her, and this observation helped to calm her.

This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natasha--as if there were nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball.

"Excuse me!" he added, turning to the baron, "we will finish this conversation elsewhere--at a ball one must dance."

And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince Andrew had felt in the impending reforms.

Prince Andrew had never before heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.

It seemed to him that this was not Speranski but someone else.

It seemed that in this company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored ridicule.

Now this world disconcerted him no longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it found in it a new enjoyment.

This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him while she sang.

She asked this and then became confused, feeling that she ought not to have asked it.

"Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?" said he to himself.

Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared to run into some expense for the sake of good society--that Pierre could not refuse, and promised to come.

Husband and wife glanced at one another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming the honor of this visit.

"This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances," thought Berg.

This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself.

Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the bowing and scraping.

This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrew to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Vera continued with a still more subtle smile:

It was as if she feared this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.

Prince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage, and to obtain this he started for the country next day.

Three weeks passed in this way.

She knew this for certain, though she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.

"Is it possible that this stranger has now become everything to me?" she asked herself, and immediately answered, "Yes, everything!

"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be," continued Prince Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure of yourself.

Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.

Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished to hear of this, but Prince Andrew was firm.

Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she constantly divined.

You will be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte!

The case is this: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand any contradiction and is becoming irritable.

This irritability is, as you know, chiefly directed to political questions.

After his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits.

But together with this mental change he has grown physically much weaker.

I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad which the doctors recommended long ago.

I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our little angel a stepmother.

After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.

This comforting dream and hope were given her by God's folk-- the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the prince's knowledge.

Her father objected to this because he wanted a more distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew.

"How is it that no one realizes this?" thought Princess Mary.

When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that, strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage.

She disclosed this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk, and he approved of her intention.

The chief attraction of military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and irreproachable idleness.

Nicholas Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when, after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which he already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov.

This letter grieved and mortified Nicholas.

This letter touched Nicholas.

Thoughts of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it--far stronger, as though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which the force of attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the distance.

She exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas returned, and the faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him.

I was in love with Boris, with my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different.

This amazed Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically.

It always seemed to him that there was something not quite right about this intended marriage.

Once, when he had touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too had doubts about this marriage.

To throw off this burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he was going, to Mitenka's lodge and demanded an account of everything.

(This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits at Otradnoe.

The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this excitement might have on her son.

"I knew," thought Nicholas, "that I should never understand anything in this crazy world."

Well then, this! and he tore up the note, and by so doing caused the old countess to weep tears of joy.

This scorn was not offensive to his master.

(This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe copse, a small place a mile and a half from the house.)

Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of breaking something in the master's apartment, and he hastened to say all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the open under the sky once more.

The old count had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment.

(This was "Uncle's" favorite expression.)

"Karay, here!" he shouted, answering "Uncle's" remark by this call to his borzoi.

This person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman's cloak, with a tall peaked cap on his head.

After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it was with this that Daniel's voice was heard calling ulyulyu.

"What would it be to Thee to do this for me?" he said to God.

Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of it.

Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing, had rushed out from the wood.

The huntsmen assembled with their booty and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws, gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding her.

"What's this?" thought Nicholas.

Do you want a taste of this?... said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably imagining himself still speaking to his foe.

For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy riding in company such as this... what could be better?

(This call and the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)

"Rugayushka!" he added, involuntarily by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this red borzoi.

Again the beautiful Erza reached him, but when close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.

From behind this came women's laughter and whispers.

And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one she had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.

All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered and prepared by her.

"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered Natasha first one thing and then another.

Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit and obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would, one would have supposed, long ago have effaced?

But this lasted only a second.

As a result of this the unconsidered tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good.

She felt this to be their last hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right.

She felt sorry for herself: sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone-- while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.

Him... I want him... now, this minute!

Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?

"Sonya, what is this?" she cried, twanging a thick string.

That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling timidly when all this happened before," thought Natasha, "and in just the same way I thought there was something lacking in her."

To change the water in this glass.

She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was with him and he was looking at her with a lover's eyes.

She thought of Natasha and of her own youth, and of how there was something unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natasha and Prince Andrew.

Her maternal instinct told her that Natasha had too much of something, and that because of this she would not be happy.

Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt--this was Nicholas.

But no-- this is something new I've never seen before.

This isn't the Kosoy meadow nor the Demkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is!

"I think this used to be Natasha," thought Nicholas, "and that was Madame Schoss, but perhaps it's not, and this Circassian with the mustache I don't know, but I love her."

And if this is really Melyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and have come to Melyukovka, thought Nicholas.

"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the face of her own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar.

She threw this over her head and shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.

This path led to the barn.

Sonya heard this and Natasha's whisper:

And when saying this she herself fancied she had really seen what she described.

Self- sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case she could not see what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom.

And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome.

Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily, with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single tooth or hair remained.

She is the first person in this house; she's my best friend, cried the prince.

"And if you allow yourself," he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess Mary for the first time, "to forget yourself again before her as you dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house.

Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on Mademoiselle Bourienne's advice had allowed this doctor to visit him and had grown accustomed to him.

Boris had realized this the week before when the commander-in-chief in his presence invited Rostopchin to dinner on St. Nicholas' Day, and Rostopchin had replied that he could not come:

He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor of being presented to the Duke.

On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was impossible to pass any judgment.

I turned him out of my house this morning.

Julie said this was charming

She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod forests she could demand this, and she received what she demanded.

Don't judge by me: sleeves nowadays are this size!

'Husbands' sisters bring up blisters,' but this one wouldn't hurt a fly.

The count did not set out cheerfully on this visit, at heart he felt afraid.

He did not mention this to his daughter, but Natasha noticed her father's nervousness and anxiety and felt mortified by it.

Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this apparition and began speaking about the prince's indisposition.

Natasha noticed this and guessed its reason.

I can't bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute! and she turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry.

After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha.

"I suppose it has to be like this!" she thought.

This was Anatole Kuragin whom she had seen and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg.

Natasha knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure.

During this act every time Natasha looked toward the stalls she saw Anatole Kuragin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring at her.

She was so pleased by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.

The cymbals and horns in the orchestra struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and waved his feet about very rapidly.

(He was Duport, who received sixty thousand rubles a year for this art.)

Natasha no longer thought this strange.

While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face, her neck, and her bare arms.

She did not know how it was that within five minutes she had come to feel herself terribly near to this man.

Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!

She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kuragin whom she could not help watching.

There was a special reason for this, as he had got married two years before--a fact known only to his most intimate friends.

He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place in society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and evidently would not repay.

Natasha guessed they were talking about the old prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her.

After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on the Rostovs, and Natasha, very glad of this diversion, having shut herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying on the new dresses.

No, this is really beyond anything, my dear count, said she to Count Rostov who had followed her in.

Natasha brightened up and felt almost in love with this woman, who was so beautiful and so kind.

She only felt herself again completely borne away into this strange senseless world--so remote from her old world--a world in which it was impossible to know what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless.

He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him.

"Else how could all this have happened?" thought she.

"Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my advice," she began.

Count Rostov approved of this suggestion, appreciating its reasonableness.

Can it be that all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went before?

"A man told me to give you this-" and she handed Natasha a letter.

Then he went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him--for this there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her--but that if she loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could hinder their bliss.

So this is the meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before yesterday, yesterday, and today, thought Sonya.

I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too, but it's only now that I feel such love.

But why this secrecy?

Evidently this question presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how to answer it.

If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or cease seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will.

At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natasha.

If I don't sleep for three nights I'll not leave this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the family be disgraced, thought she.

It's no joke, this plot you've hatched.

I'm telling you this for the last time.

Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades.

If they hear of this, will they let it pass?

For fifty-eight years have I lived in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!

He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natasha, whom he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness, folly, and cruelty.

It's true this engagement never was much to my liking.

Sonya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to Natasha's room.

Pierre felt it strange to see this calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his soul.

Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dolokhov, consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair.

Come now, this is stupid.

"You're a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don't know what deprives me from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!" said Pierre, expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.

This expression irritated Prince Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:

Give this to the countess... if you see her.

"But can this be compared...?" said Pierre.

If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment ask on my knees for your hand and your love!

All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her tears.

It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.

What produced this extraordinary occurrence?

All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur.

The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be displeased at this excess of zeal.

They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and, though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing.

This idea was eagerly received.

Boris understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes, slightly bowed his head.

Boris was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain important personages that much that was concealed from others was usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their estimation.

Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept my engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me from the time Prince Kuragin asked for his passports.

This man rode toward Balashev at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.

This inevitability alone can explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore out a grenadier's mustache with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was chivalrous, noble, and gentle.

When he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression this reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he wanted.

This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was conscious of.

You say I have begun this war!

I give you my word of honor," said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor could carry no weight--"I give you my word of honor that I have five hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula.

"But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the backwardness of a people," said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for appreciation of this remark.

This reply of Balashev's, which hinted at the recent defeats of the French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander's court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon's dinner, where it passed unnoticed.

Has he not thought that I may do the same? and he turned inquiringly to Balashev, and evidently this thought turned him back on to the track of his morning's anger, which was still fresh in him.

Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this, say nothing to me about his sister?

Does he think me a scoundrel, or an old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself?

He thought not of this pretty child, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself.

Why do you say that, when you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old?

To clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for himself the following of the state of affairs.

But this was only the external condition; the essential significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people, from a courtier's point of view (and in an Emperor's vicinity all became courtiers), was clear to everyone.

It was this: the Emperor did not assume the title of commander-in-chief, but disposed of all the armies; the men around him were his assistants.

Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant, and proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined subdivisions of tendencies and parties:

To this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and others, chiefly Germans.

The members of this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vilna into Poland and freedom from all prearranged plans.

The men of this party had both the quality and the defect of frankness in their opinions.

This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyantsev, who, for other reasons of state, was in favor of peace.

If our army is well organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering any defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay.

Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa, Shishkov, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakcheev and Balashev agreed to sign.

This adjutant was also there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by work or by feasting.

From this short interview with Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to form a clear conception of the man.

The unbrushed tufts of hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples expressed this most eloquently.

General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's attack--very fine, or a retreat, also good!

But besides this feeling of respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew.

Prince Andrew, listening to this polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts, felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying.

No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or the enemy's armies will be in a day's time, and no one can gauge the force of this or that detachment.

On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natasha was ill and her engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their wishes.

But this shall be our last separation.

For the Pavlograd hussars, however, the whole of this retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies was a very simple and agreeable business.

He knew that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to pretend not to doubt it.

"I can't stand this any more," said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov did not relish Zdrzhinski's conversation.

"This is my cup," said he.

To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor's wife, but not once of the impending danger.

The instant he had done this, all Rostov's animation vanished.

This simple thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best years of their lives on that business.

A child knocks itself and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done.

But when he had gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but...

But this was not enough.

Natasha unconsciously felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society.

She noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness, which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.

During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every day.

She knew for certain that she was pretty, but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to.

On the contrary it tormented her more than anything else of late, and particularly so on this bright, hot summer day in town.

In Natasha's receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her strongly.

This discovery excited him.

His love for Natasha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the comet, 666, L'Empereur Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof--all this had to mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a great achievement and great happiness.

Petya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair.

Everything seems funny to you, but this isn't at all a joke....

At this moment, Petya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice that was now deep and now shrill:

Natasha's unwontedly brilliant eyes, continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced him to this condition.

"So this is what the Emperor is!" thought Petya.

But in spite of this he continued to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back--the police in front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of the Assumption--and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim before his eyes and he lost consciousness.

Seeing this the Emperor had a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the balcony.

He hardened his heart against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude into the deliberations of the nobility.

(He was well acquainted with the senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him formally.)

"Yes, and this is not a time for discussing," he continued, "but for acting: there is war in Russia!

And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow the strength of the Russian army was trebled.

This general, hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander, and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned, as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not seen.

Princess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the old prince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit Mademoiselle Bourienne either.

She feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at the strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all previous wars.

To this letter the old prince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the Frenchwoman at a distance.

In this letter Prince Andrew pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near the theater of war and on the army's direct line of march, and advised him to move to Moscow.

Eight quires, like this sample, gilt- edged... it must be exactly like the sample.

Oh, that this toil might end and you would release me! thought he.

This happened to him almost every night.

Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as possible if there was danger.

This fact impressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon forgot it.

This man, an ex-captain of police, was saying angrily:

From this you will see that you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory.

The people did not at once realize the meaning of this bombardment.

Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.

This fire was already burning itself out.

Having written this and given the paper to Alpatych, he told him how to arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the boy's tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately.

Some of this dust was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that road.

But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to think about entirely apart from general questions.

All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking, floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered it specially pathetic.

If it has come to this--we must fight as long as Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand...

This is painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit.

Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would not have happened.

Anna Pavlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients.

This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July.

The "man of great merit," who was still a novice in court circles, wishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna by defending her former position on this question, observed:

As soon as he said this both Prince Vasili and Anna Pavlovna turned away from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naivete.

While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow.

How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable conflicts of various wills!

In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.

"It's like this," he said thoughtfully, "if there's a battle soon, yours will win.

Lelorgne d'Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus: "If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will win, but if later, God knows what will happen."

The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due to physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell her something, and the fact that her presence always increased his restlessness confirmed her opinion.

Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet there it was.

Princess Mary's heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale and leaned against the wall to keep from falling.

He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find the right place for it.

This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who had come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her prompt departure.

Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done as if of its own accord.

As proof of this the peasant had brought from Visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that they were false) paid to him in advance for hay.

But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his own family and valuables from his estate.

Though the peasants paid quitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about complying with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at work in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do.

You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning for the princess' things.

I'll go to the police officer, and you tell them so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready.

Without saying anything of this to the princess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for the princess' carriages.

(This was before his talk with Dron.)

She said her only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone, and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude.

She handed this to the princess.

"From whom did you get this?" she asked.

This idea horrified her, made her shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never experienced before.

"Dronushka," she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka who always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the fair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, "Dronushka, now since our misfortune..." she began, but could not go on.

I give this order in my brother's name; and tell them that what is ours is theirs.

But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:

With mournful pleasure she now lingered over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture of his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in imagination at this still and mystic hour of night.

"Dunyasha!" she screamed wildly, and tearing herself out of this silence she ran to the servants' quarters to meet her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.

"May I make bold to trouble your honor?" said he respectfully, but with a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand thrust into his bosom.

"My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince Nicholas Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people"--he pointed to the peasants--"asks you to come up to the house....

This meeting immediately struck Rostov as a romantic event.

When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her father's funeral, her voice trembled.

Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.

Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.

And the nearer he drew to it the more Alpatych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results.

And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.

This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those painful feelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still found place in his soul.

This was a plan of campaign he had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat.

While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman's voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door.

Kutuzov's adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of the priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his Serene Highness bread and salt.

"Oh, this German precision!" he muttered, shaking his head.

I remember, yes, I remember you with the standard! said Kutuzov, and a flush of pleasure suffused Prince Andrew's face at this recollection.

"If this patience comes out," he said to himself after shuffling the cards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, "if it comes out, it means... what does it mean?"

At this rate they will soon begin beating us.

This is what his cajolery has brought us to!

"I must get away this very day," he murmured to himself.

(This was the battle of Shevardino.)

The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle to it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was fought.

On the twenty-fourth, we are told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on the field of Borodino.

This was shown first by the fact that there were no entrenchments there by the twenty fifth and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the position of the Shevardino Redoubt.

To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of how the battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow.

This soldier was looking at the cathedral and crossing himself.

This was one of the head army doctors.

An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but at this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark, interrupted him.

"This is what you must do," said Boris.

Boris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his Serene Highness.

The officers said that either Napoleon or Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of horsemen.

I don't think this interests you?

Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying that it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around unoccupied and to place troops below it.

This disposition on the left flank increased Pierre's doubt of his own capacity to understand military matters.

Bennigsen did not know this and moved the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the matter to the commander-in-chief.

And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the cold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me.

That all this should still be, but no me....

As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness--they expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once.

For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win.

He now understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the impending battle.

He understood that latent heat (as they say in physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen, and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as it were lightheartedly.

He who has come to this as I have through the same sufferings...

If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only when it was worth while going to certain death, as now.

And when there was a war, like this one, it would be war!

We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously.

And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone.

And I know that this is our last meeting!

But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was pleased to hear it from him.

"Ha, what's this?" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were looking at something concealed under a cloth.

After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements.

This could not be done and was not done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the wood, met Tuchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn the Russian position.

All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not be executed.

But in the disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements, and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be made by Napoleon during the battle.

But this was not and could not be done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one of his orders during the fight could be executed.

"This poor army!" he suddenly remarked.

This cold is tiresome.

All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.

The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist, and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the riverbanks and in Borodino.

And all this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the whole space.

Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down the knoll.

They all gazed with the same dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat, who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse's hoofs.

Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow, among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle.

But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices and jokes were heard on all sides.

This was followed by a burst of laughter.

So this gruel isn't to your taste?

Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the same way in his own soul.

After this from amid the ranks of infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry moved forward.

But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves--in which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened-- even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was taking place.

In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and galloped full speed back again.

In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest Napoleon, Berthier's eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse.

Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former battles.

All this was possible.

He could not stop what was going on before him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.

Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon, exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general's senseless offer.

He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom he was dealing with.

This was Raevski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part of the field of Borodino.

"Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!" he thought, listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke.

But this one has hit!

The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince Andrew.

I love life--I love this grass, this earth, this air....

He thought this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking at him.

There was something in this life I did not and do not understand.

Two doctors--one of whom was pale and trembling--were silently doing something to this man's other, gory leg.

He now remembered the connection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes.

This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his greatness.

With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest.

By evening this thought had ripened in every soul.

This problem seemed to the ancients insoluble.

Only when we have admitted the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.

To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of history.

What was the cause of this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.

But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger.

He gave orders to prepare for a fresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive anyone, but because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone who had taken part in the battle knew it.

For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are made by generals--as any one of us sitting over a map in his study may imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle--the questions present themselves: Why did Kutuzov during the retreat not do this or that?

The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our plans from some given moment.

Moment by moment the event is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous, uninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him, which constantly conflict with one another.

This brilliant company separated into several groups who all discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the position, the state of the army, the plans suggested, the situation of Moscow, and military questions generally.

(This Frenchman and one of the German princes serving with the Russian army were discussing the siege of Saragossa and considering the possibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.)

From all this talk he saw only one thing: that to defend Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of those words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless commander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the battle would still not take place.

This Kutuzov knew well.

Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian patriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing) by insisting that Moscow must be defended.

When, when was this terrible affair decided?

Ermolov, Kaysarov, and Toll, who had just arrived, sat down on this bench.

She was nearest to him and saw how his face puckered; he seemed about to cry, but this did not last long.

"I did not expect this," said he to his adjutant Schneider when the latter came in late that night.

I did not think this would happen.

A woman sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward!

It was explained to her that this was la grace.

All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant, refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure, but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim.

And as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets the better of cleverer ones, Helene--having realized that the main object of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her to Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to which she received indications)-before parting with her money insisted that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband should be performed.

Yet in spite of this your vow was binding.

The question was no longer whether this was possible, but only which was the better match and how the matter would be regarded at court.

This letter was brought to Pierre's house when he was on the field of Borodino.

Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants, the officials--the heads of the various government departments--knew that Moscow would soon be in the enemy's hands, just as Count Rostopchin himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various departments.

In the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the commander in chief.

Though Petya would remain in the service, this transfer would give the countess the consolation of seeing at least one of her sons under her wing, and she hoped to arrange matters for her Petya so as not to let him go again, but always get him appointed to places where he could not possibly take part in a battle.

Nicholas' letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in her presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an intervention of Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas.

Sonya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving the Rostovs' affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the princess was a good match.

But this only lasted a moment.

This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonski.

What is this, my dear?

The countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of news of something detrimental to the children's interests, such as the building of a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private theater or an orchestra.

"Health, at a time like this?" said the count.

When they understood that order the servants set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal.

"What could we fasten this onto?" asked the servants, trying to fix a trunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage.

Sonya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite different from Natasha's.

At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.

They knew their Natasha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.

This is wonderful! she cried, holding out her hand to him.

This is how it happened.

He felt that everything was now at an end, all was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this position.

He went along the whole length of this passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both hands, went down as far as the first landing.

At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still held.

This city was evidently living with the full force of its own life.

Here is this capital at my feet.

This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer.

These men, who under the leadership of the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the publican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served them.

As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.

Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this, Rostopchin had returned to Moscow.

This letter requested the count to send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army was retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow.

This was not news to Rostopchin.

When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his actions at this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two important considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and expedite the departure of the inhabitants.

If one accepts this twofold aim all Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable.

If the government offices were removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count yielded reluctantly.

And this is what they have let it come to!

Rostopchin felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.

This is what they have done with Russia!

This is what they have done with me! thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be attributed.

"Here is that mob, the dregs of the people," he thought as he gazed at the crowd: "this rabble they have roused by their folly!

And this thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim, something on which to vent his rage.

The young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot indicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed his neck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and submissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work.

This man, Vereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing.

"Ah!" cried Vereshchagin in meek surprise, looking round with a frightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him.

This way, your excellency...

This way, please... said a trembling, frightened voice behind him.

Since the world began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed such a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with this same idea.

Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on Rostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him to stop.

The bells in the Kremlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound troubled the French.

This was followed by two whistling sounds of canister shot, one after another.

He did not know how or when this thought had taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past, understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to him like a dream.

Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.

Pierre had first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life--all that men so painstakingly acquire and guard--if it has any worth has so only by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.

Moreover, at this moment Pierre was supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he had already done in that direction.

If he were now to leave Moscow like everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and his announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to this Pierre was very sensitive.

The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen, two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding--all this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.

Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind.

While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared the figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but now quite transformed.

See this? shouted Makar Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol.

"Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?" he asked again.

"But I have had a lucky escape this time," he added, pointing to the damaged plaster of the wall.

You shall pay for this, said the Frenchman, letting go of him.

Well, and what are we to do with this man? he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a brother.

Here is one I got at Wagram" (he touched his side) "and a second at Smolensk"--he showed a scar on his cheek--"and this leg which as you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great battle of la Moskowa.

I don't know what, that... and having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.

This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did not understand what was said to them in French.

The few glasses of wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last few days and which was essential for the execution of his design.

He thought this, but still sat in the same place.

Well, let's have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?

Having repeated these words the captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.

Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to express the thoughts that filled his mind.

When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he understood that.

Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together, something loosened Pierre's tongue.

It's more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is right on the other side.

No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.

The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not know, and this alarmed and tormented her.

She knew Prince Andrew was in the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage; but this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob.

After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one replied.

He remembered that he had now a new source of happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels.

At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out of slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music.

But besides this there was something else of importance.

In that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall, something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and a new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door.

"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is," thought Prince Andrew, trying to drive that face from his imagination.

"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed.

Though with the intimacy now established between the wounded man and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recover their former engagement would be renewed, no one--least of all Natasha and Prince Andrew--spoke of this: the unsettled question of life and death, which hung not only over Bolkonski but over all Russia, shut out all other considerations.

This woman, swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs.

Was it for this I nursed you....

But this is a monster and neither a man nor a father!

This is what we have brought away....

From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man might help her.

"This way, uncle," cried the girl.

"What does this fellow want?" shouted one of them referring to Pierre.

And without knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.

This reading, as was always the case at Anna Pavlovna's soirees, had a political significance.

They all knew very well that the enchanting countess' illness arose from an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time, and that the Italian's cure consisted in removing such inconvenience; but in Anna Pavlovna's presence no one dared to think of this or even appear to know it.

This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and zealous champion of old of our country's weal, is offered to Your Imperial Majesty.

In the Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily centered round a single incident: Kutaysov's death.

As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it, but the next day the following communication was received from Count Rostopchin:

On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkonski to Kutuzov with the following rescript:

You can yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence increases my astonishment.

This messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame, * as he said of himself.

The Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the palace on Stone Island.

But this lasted only a moment.

Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had prepared.

They are burning for the combat," declared this representative of the Russian nation, "and to prove to Your Majesty by the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are...."

"Sire!" said he, "Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of the nation and the salvation of Europe!"

When--free from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp--he saw villages with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's country houses, fields where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time.

Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.

Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him cordially though with dignity and restraint.

The women and girls flirted with him and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down.

This was Malvintseva, Princess Mary's aunt on her mother's side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in Voronezh.

Well then, remember, this is not a joke!

Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or his friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger.

I never told this to anyone and never will, only to you.

Rostov saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life.

Nicholas noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary's character with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.

For this purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop's house before Mass.

This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter from Sonya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which there had seemed no escape.

In this letter the countess also mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them; his state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now more hope.

Neither he nor she said a word about what "Natasha nursing him" might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became almost as intimate with the princess as if they were relations.

Sonya's letter written from Troitsa, which had come as an answer to Nicholas' prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas married to an heiress occupied the old countess' mind more and more.

Her position in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her worth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it.

Despite all the terror of what had happened during those last days and during the first days of their journey, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her personal affairs cheered Sonya.

"Yes, yes, it really was pink!" cried Natasha, who now thought she too remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.

In spite of this he was placed that day with the other arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied was required by an officer.

He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a kind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed.

And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate him, this expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary.

They interrupted him, for this was not to the point.

What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the soldiers.

This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming Pierre as "the man who does not give his name."

But there seemed to be no one to celebrate this holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians to be seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw the French.

He felt this in the looks of the soldiers who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were escorting him and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an important French official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier, whom they met on the way.

"Yes, of course!" replied Davout, but what this "yes" meant, Pierre did not know.

His curiosity and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch at this fifth murder.

Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he wrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other.

This one, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot from which he had fired.

He had experienced this before, but never so strongly as now.

But now he felt that the universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins remained, and this not by any fault of his own.

This man was doing something to his legs in the darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man continually glanced at him.

How can one see all this and not feel sad?

During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and Princess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of spirit.

Latterly she had become convinced that she loved and was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself in words.

This was the countess.

Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the countess and that it was necessary to say something to her.

Is this his son? said the countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.

There will be room for everybody, this is a big house.

In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew, the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which she had entered.

"But two days ago this suddenly happened," said Natasha, struggling with her sobs.

The princess understood what Natasha had meant by the words: "two days ago this suddenly happened."

She understood those words to mean that he had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs of approaching death.

In his words, his tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible in one who is alive.

To love everything and everybody and always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not to live this earthly life.

His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natasha referred to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurred two days before Princess Mary arrived.

Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this physical consciousness of her nearness.

Natasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would not do and that he had to be quiet.

Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he had more important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them by empty witticisms.

There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow awakening.

They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper, away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it was right.

And without considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says: "This is the cause!"

So it is impossible to understand by what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver was a profound one.

This was the first indication of the necessity of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course--a direct retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod.

Only when the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying forces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this movement and long ago foreseen its result.

This letter having no other object, I pray God, monsieur le Prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection!

And at once, as a clock begins to strike and chime as soon as the minute hand has completed a full circle, this change was shown by an increased activity, whirring, and chiming in the higher spheres.

Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now reorganized.

The war went on independently of them, as it had to go: that is, never in the way people devised, but flowing always from the essential attitude of the masses.

In view of all this information, when the enemy has scattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his Guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy's forces confronting you are so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive?

But by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of the forces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched, Kutuzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he commanded from attacking and a battle had taken place.

As in the Austerlitz dispositions, it was written--though not in German this time:

If only they don't make me responsible for this delay!

He, the commander-in-chief, a Serene Highness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had ever had in Russia, to be placed in this position--made the laughingstock of the whole army!

This detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.

All this had to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided--not without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves--and it was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.

Toll, who in this battle played the part of Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place, finding everything upside down everywhere.

Coming out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave general went straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his agitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would be of any use or no.

He well knew that nothing but confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as far as was in his power held the troops back.

"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in time, and nothing can be done now!" he replied to someone else.

Soon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutuzov and respectfully remarked:

It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle.

Tranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in it.

This is what the army authorities were reporting:

This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karataev at night; it sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned again.

Physically he had changed much during this time.

The sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned during these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him.

"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse," said Platon with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.

And just at this time he obtained the tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.

And this not only stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in strength as the hardships of his position increased.

But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal he knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that moment.

Pierre knew this now.

"Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam..." rattled the drums, and Pierre understood that this mysterious force completely controlled these men and that it was now useless to say any more.

From the words of his comrades who saw better than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright against the palings with its face smeared with soot.

Like this, we shan't get away before evening.

During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they had done at the start.

This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of prisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one Russian soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped.

Suddenly he burst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that men from various sides turned with surprise to see what this strange and evidently solitary laughter could mean.

A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at all by himself.

Kutuzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace.

And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest testimony to his merit.

For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who was to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a written report.

"But this is very important, from General Dokhturov," said Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in the dark.

Perhaps this is only a rumor.

(This was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant.)

There was within him a deep unexpressed conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one's own work.

He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just like the younger men, but with this difference, that he saw thousands of contingencies instead of two or three and based nothing on them.

This question absorbed all his mental powers.

An external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in due time.

Each of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a prisoner to escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand the force of this common attraction to Smolensk, their goal, drew each of them in the same direction; on the other hand an army corps could not surrender to a company, and though the French availed themselves of every convenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender on the slightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur.

Their very numbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived them of that possibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible for the Russians to stop this movement, to which the French were directing all their energies.

All Napoleon's wars serve to confirm this rule.

This was done by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and by the Russians in 1812.

People have called this kind of war "guerrilla warfare" and assume that by so calling it they have explained its meaning.

This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers.

Military science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact that the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that small detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence of this unknown factor and tries to discover it--now in a geometric formation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in the genius of the commanders.

Only then, expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the relative significance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.

This equation does not give us the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between two unknowns.

By the end of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could not.

Besides Denisov and Dolokhov (who also led a small party and moved in Denisov's vicinity), the commanders of some large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it.

This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.

But what's this? he asked, noticing the French drummer boy.

"Michael Feoklitych," said he to the esaul, "this is again fwom that German, you know.

What has he been doing all this time?

Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached himself to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it.

The only effect of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded he seldom brought in prisoners.

"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and I crept like this through the wood and lay down."

So I went for them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I.

But this uneasiness lasted only a moment.

"Yes, he's a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw nothing shameful in this reminder.

"But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities," continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of this subject which irritated Denisov.

"Now, why have you kept this lad?" he went on, swaying his head.

"No, I am used to this," said Petya.

Why, this gentleman's saber.

Oh, this is delightful!

Petya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to share it.

And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth--that nothing in this world is terrible.

This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a conversation with Karataev the day before.

His feeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away, but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at Platon.

"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years or more passed by.

So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!

Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in innocent sufferings.

"Filez, filez!" * Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they flashed with a cruel light.

Berthier wrote to his Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what he said:

This state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under control in case of an engagement.

This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did all they could to destroy themselves.

So one might have thought that regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed the actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory.

Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially of Ney--a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to Orsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.

History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions says that this occurred because Kutuzov and Tormasov and Chichagov, and this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers...

The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military historians (to the effect that Kutuzov hindered an attack) is unfounded, for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at Vyazma and Tarutino.

If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his marshals--and that aim was not merely frustrated but all attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled--then this last period of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a series of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian historians.

The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals, from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.

But not even that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not they who had suffered from the trampled beds.

But the French troops quite rightly did not consider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited them in flight or captivity alike.

To them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do their surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of their investigation.

Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natasha go with her to Moscow, and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.

And that other side of life, of which she had never before thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable, was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering and indignity.

She said: This can't go on--it won't.

And now he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her imagination Natasha this time gave him a different answer.

But the same blow that almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natasha to life.

And Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings.

Natasha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all talked about her health, and this pleased her.

The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon's army was the rapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this is the corresponding decrease of the Russian army.

But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutuzov.

This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on the French army.

Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk in this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand, while Kutuzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite--a sort of puppet useful only because he had a Russian name.

Beginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time his disagreement with those about him began, he alone said that the battle of Borodino was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches and reports up to the time of his death.

This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity.

This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity.

This was because all who began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army day by day.

This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being robust he ordered about those weaker than himself.

"I've had an eye on him this long while," said the other.

This was shown not so much by the arrangements it made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges.

After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their maximum.

Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

And he understood this not merely from the attitude of the court.

From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect on the old general.

And this embrace too, owing to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its usual effect on Kutuzov and he gave a sob.

Kutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia, but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had gained.

With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real strength removed and transferred to the Emperor.

The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from Kutuzov's and animated by different motives.

That same day he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of Borodino for more than a month had recently died in the Rostovs' house at Yaroslavl, and Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Helene's death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before.

All this at the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its significance.

He was surprised to find that this inner freedom, which was independent of external conditions, now had as it were an additional setting of external liberty.

And this very absence of an aim gave him the complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at this time.

This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view.

But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this as of a settled matter.

Why this was necessary he did not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary.

"This must be one of her companions," he thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.

"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her hand, "so this is how we meet again.

He glanced once at the companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and, as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.

This stern, thin, pale face that looks so much older!

Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the first time she has talked of him like that."

"What I have certainly gained is freedom," he began seriously, but did not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.

By this time he had risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him with her eyes.

She saw the possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.

"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings," remarked Pierre, "but if at this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?' then for heaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh!

I say this to you, he added, turning to Natasha.

"Oh, yes, long ago before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg," he reflected.

"And this man too," thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief of Police.

Pierre noticed this but could not go.

Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of a headache began to say good night.

This is what I will say.

Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.

All the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true for him always.

Natasha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright and cheerful.

The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the reaction."

In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the reaction.

He ought to have acted in this way and in that way.

In this case he did well and in that case badly.

If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not agree with his limited understanding of what is good.

Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?

I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of genius.

And by chance an escape from this dangerous position presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to Africa.

During the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all the crowned heads of Europe.

A botanist notices that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's existence.

He could see no way out of this situation.

But this is not at all an interesting or cheerful subject.

"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said.

Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and regretted that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien.

"I give you my word of honor it shan't occur again, and let this always be a reminder to me," and he pointed to the broken ring.

But he did forget himself once or twice within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and would again promise that this should really be the very last time.

She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children, was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift, and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient gratitude.

Besides the Bezukhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired General Vasili Dmitrich Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this fifth of December.

Without you, or when something comes between us like this, I seem lost and can't do anything.

You are too fond of this one, his wife whispered in French.

She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natasha of former days.

To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose.

And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and mysterious reflection.

But in time he grew used to this demand.

Knowing that Natasha asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others only when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found an unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for everyone in the house, and never forgot anything.

"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a shopman.

After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left without aim or object for her existence.

But those glances expressed something more: they said that she had played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self, that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as full of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied.

Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the little children failed to understand this and avoided her.

Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable, continued all through teatime.

Well, and all this idiocy--Gossner and Tatawinova?

This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew, one out of the other, in the children's presence.

Soon after this the children came in to say good night.

Oh, they should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose--he'd knock all this nonsense out of them!

"Why this," began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room, sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: "the position in Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything.

He has abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism (Pierre could not tolerate mysticism in anyone now).

Everyone sees that this cannot go on.

"I will tell you this," he said, rising and trying with nervously twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally abandoning the attempt.

They were for the most part quite insignificant trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now that he read this diary about his children for the first time.

Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the sole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted him.

But they insisted on their own view: love of one's neighbor and Christianity--and all this in the presence of young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things.

This evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy--as we were going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to bits, and he told me of it himself at once!

But she knew she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so.

He took this as a sign of approval and a confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes' reflection continued to think aloud.

"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych" (this was his overseer) "came back from the Tambov estate and told me they are already offering eighty thousand rubles for the forest."

Besides this feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following the details of her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with what he was saying flitted through her mind.

Natasha was so used to this kind of talk with her husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning.

You won't escape!--from that moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and contrary to them because quite different subjects were talked about at one and the same time.

This simultaneous discussion of many topics did not prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest sign that they fully understood one another.

In saying this Natasha was sincere in acknowledging Mary's superiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Mary and to all other women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh.

"You know how much I..." he began to soften down what he had said; but Natasha interrupted him to show that this was unnecessary.

Besides, when I was in Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go to pieces without me--everyone was pulling his own way.

You see, I don't say that we ought to oppose this and that.

How did this happen?

She wished to express this doubt to him.

Pierre was not at all surprised at this question.

And one couldn't love more, but this is something special....

"Have you done this?" he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax and pens.

Modern history replying to these questions says: you want to know what this movement means, what caused it, and what force produced these events?

This caused people all over France to begin to slash at and drown one another.

But the Allied monarchs were angry at this and went to fight the French once more.

It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic--a caricature of the historical accounts.

To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.

If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should be explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of history lies precisely in that force.

History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to everyone.

Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers.

The answers given by this kind of historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event.

As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently but often in quite contradictory ways.

So the historians of this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy the understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no reply to history's essential question.

According to this view the power of historical personages, represented as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded as a force that itself produces events.

This curious contradiction is not accidental.

This condition is never observed by the universal historians, and so to explain the resultant forces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action.

But the universal historian Gervinus, refuting this opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that the campaign of 1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside Alexander's will--such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de Stael, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others.

Of the immense number of indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is the cause.

But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind (which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an actual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power--and say plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will.

This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one possible way of dealing with it.

This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given him by God.

But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to determine what is this power of one man over others.

From this fundamental difference between the view held by history and that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell minutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what power-- existing immutably outside time--is, but to history's questions about the meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer nothing.

Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will of the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power only conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the people has by tacit agreement prescribed to them.

But what this program consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually contradict one another.

To this question historians reply that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on Louis XVI.

History proves this at every turn.

If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in the direction selected by the whole herd.

(With this method of observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the people's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side, or even in the rear.)

If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow a given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that have attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd we must watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all sides of the herd.

Apart from that, the chief source of our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical accounts a whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such for instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that series of events.

Amid a long series of unexecuted orders of Napoleon's one series, for the campaign of 1812, was carried out--not because those orders differed in any way from the other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work this or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over the figure cut in the stencil.

To understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command himself takes part in the event.

This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is called power.

This relation consists in the following:

This relation of the men who command to those they command is what constitutes the essence of the conception called power.

And corresponding to the event its justification appears in people's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for liberty, and for equality.

People ceased to kill one another, and this event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on.

Arriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to these two essential questions of history:

(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is his participation in that action.

The establishment of this simple and obvious law should be enough.

All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this question.

This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and independent of reason.

Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law that he has learned to be fulfilled.

He feels that however impossible it may be, it is so, for without this conception of freedom not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would be unable to live for a single moment.

They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of one side of it.

In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as experimental science stands to abstract science.

Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence, and history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and freedom.

The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance of the action and our judgment of it.

To convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment.

But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to equal zero, we assumed in some given case--as for instance in that of a dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot--complete absence of freedom, by so doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is also no man.

All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the laws of reason.

But just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this unknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be the subject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will in human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms the subject of history, while free will itself is the subject of metaphysics.

The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more evident are the laws of that movement.

Let's get in out of this cold wind.

At this point, abandoning the two fertilized eggs might be a worse sin.

Maybe this vacation would give them some much needed time together.

At least at this point, the old house was paying for itself.

I just thought it would be fun for the man to tell the wife this for once.

I hope you accept this by the time the baby is born.

"What?" she asked, glancing around to see what she'd absentmindedly done this time.

This time he didn't simply indicate what he felt.

It was embarrassing to think she had let it go on this long without realizing he was troubled by it.

And yet, in a way, waiting this long might have been an advantage.

How long is this going to be your dirty little secret?

This isn't easy for you, is it?

I should have known you would feel this way.

Would this coolness last forever?

How long this state of things continued Dorothy could not even guess, she was so greatly bewildered.

This child, who is from the crust of the earth, like yourself, called you a Wizard.

Step this way, please.

"This," said he, "is the Royal Bush of the Mangaboos.

"Who is this?" asked the Wizard, curiously.

My hands felt every object and observed every motion, and in this way I learned to know many things.

This made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was exhausted.

We were busy cutting out paper dolls; but we soon wearied of this amusement, and after cutting up our shoestrings and clipping all the leaves off the honeysuckle that were within reach, I turned my attention to Martha's corkscrews.

This was my first great sorrow--my first personal experience with death.

In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference.

This famous Prussian neutrality is just a trap.

Is this princess of yours rich?

Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them cared about.

And this man was saying we were going to the moon in a rocket ship made of metals we hadn't even invented.